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UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 



RECENT MUSIC AND MUSICIANS: 

As described in the Diaries and Correspondence of Ignaz 
Moscheles. Selected by his wife, and adapted from the 
original German by A. D. Coleridge. 121110, cloth, 
$2.00. 

"Not only musical enthusiasts, but everyone who has the faintest glimmer 
of a love for music and art, will welcome with delight this volume. It is a 
personal history of music for sixty years of this century — full of the names of 
artists and composers, each of them a centre of pleasurable emotions." — Lon- 
don Examiner. 

" Full of pleasant gossip. The diary and letters between them contain 
notices and criticisms on almost every musical celebrity of the last half cen- 
tury."— Pall Mall Gazette. 

"A valuable book of reference for the musical historian." — London Athe- 
nceum. 

" The lovers of musical gossip will find a rich treat in the allusions to the 
celebrated performers of the present century, and in the critical remarks on 
the productions which have held the highest place in the music of the 
period." — JV. Y. Tribune. 

"The most captivating book ever published, for people interested in music 
and musical people." — Phila. Evening Bulletin. 

" A book of remarkable attractions for all professional musicians and all 
who are interested in music, in its history, its great composers, singers, and 
performers/' — Boston Transcript. 

" We have examined this most interesting and valuable work, and consider 
it a very important addition to the limited number of books of special interest 
to the musical student," — Musical Gazette. 



HENRY HOLT &> CO., 

25 Bond Street, New York. 



Recent Art and Society 



As Described in the Autobiography and Memoirs 



OF 



HENRY FOTHERGILL CHORLEY 



COMPILED FROM THE EDITION OF 



HENRY G. HEWLETT 



C. H. JONES 










NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



1874 



^Ck tevjv '£. 0. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

HENRY HOLT 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



INTRODUCTION 



r I ^HE materials of which this volume is composed 
-*- were drawn from a recently published English 
work, entitled, " Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters 
of Henry Fothergill Chorley," compiled by Henry G. 
Hewlett. That work extends through two thick and 
goodly-sized volumes ; and a large amount of space is 
assigned to purely personal details and experiences 
which could hardly prove interesting to American 
readers, many of whom probably have scarcely even 
heard Chorley\s name. The chief difference between 
the present work, and Mr. Hewlett's is, that these 
details have been for the most part omitted, while the 
whole of the Autobiography, nearly all the Letters, 
and the greater portion of the extracts from Chorley s 
Journals have been retained. The material thus chosen 
has also been rearranged in such a way as to group 
together those portions between which there seemed 
to be a natural connection in point of time or subject ; 
and to render the whole more effective. 



1 v IN TR OD UCTION. 

Enough of the Memoir has been retained, however, 
to link the rest together, and to give a fair impression 
of Chorley's life and character. For Henry F. Chorley 
was a man who deserved to be remembered for his 
own sake; as one who without any advantages of 
fortune and in spite of many drawbacks, created and 
maintained for himself an honorable position of inde- 
pendence, and even of authority — who, notwithstand- 
ing certain infirmities of disposition, exhibited from the 
outset and retained to the close of his career, a sincer- 
ity of conviction, a rectitude of conduct, and a tender- 
ness of heart, that ennobled his calling in the estimation 
of the world, and endeared his character to those who 
enjoyed his private friendship. He paid the penalty 
common to most men, however able, who choose the 
career of a journalist, of remaining comparatively " to 
fortune and to fame unknown ; " but his life on its 
• social side was singularly successful and happy. The 
circle of his intimates included some of the most distin- 
guished of contemporary men and women in England 
and on the Continent, and one or two of our 
American notabilities as well; he was a constant 
habitue of the brilliant society which gathered around 
Lady Blessington, Lady Morgan, and other leaders 
of the ( London social world; and his Journals record 
reminiscences of nearly every musical, literary, or 
social celebrity of his time who was known in, or who 
visited England, together with many who did not. 



INTRODUCTION. v 

These reminiscences — of which the greater part of the 
present volume consists — were not intended for publi- 
cation, and consequently they have that peculiar 
charm and piquancy pertaining to impressions and 
experiences put on record at the moment when they 
were freshest and most vivid. 

In the narrative portion of the volume I have not 
thought it necessary to distinguish my own share from 
that of Mr. Hewlett, whose language has been retained 
whenever possible, and who is sole authority for the 
facts. 

C. H. J. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 



Autobiography — Chorley Family — Early life and training in Lan- 
cashire, .......... I 

CHAPTER II. 

Autobiography — {Continued), ........ 20 

CHAPTER III. 

Enters a merchant's office in Liverpool — Distasteful employment 
— Literary and artistic tastes — Intimacy with Mr. Rathbone, 
and its influence on his life — Early efforts in Literature — 
Society in Liverpool — Mrs. Hemans — American merchant- 
captains and their wives — Cultivation of Music and critical 
taste — Introduction to " Athenaeum " — Opening of Liverpool 
and Manchester Railway — Letter to Mr. Dilke — Contribu- 
tions to " Athenaeum " — Admitted to staff of that journal — 
Arrival in London — Literary criticism — Letter to a friend in 
Liverpool — Letter from Mr. Dilke, 35 

CHAPTER IV. 

Literary life in London from 1834 to 1 841— Connection with the 
" Athenaeum " — Antagonism of " Literary Gazette " — Jerdan 
arid Miss Landon — Staff of the " Athenaeum " — George Dar- 
ley and Talfourd's " Ion " — Attacks upon Chorley as a Critic 
— Letters of G. P. R. James and Thackeray — Publication of 
" Sketches of a Seaport Town " and " Conti " — Entrusted 
with preparation of " Memorials of Mrs. Hemans " — Letter 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

to a friend in Liverpool upon the subject — Publication and 
reception of the work — Writes a Drama — Contributions to 
Boudoir Literature — Songs — Self-culture in Literature and 
Art — Criticisms on Forest in " Lear," and the " La Valliere " 
of Lord Lytton — " Lady of Lyons " attributed to him — Pub- 
lishes " The Authors of England " — Anonymous publication 
of the " Lion " — Its reception, 49 

CHAPTER V. 

Personal and social life in London from 1834 to 1841 — Shock 
occasioned by the death of Mr. Benson Rathbone — Effects of 
loneliness and ill-health — Counter-influences of personal 
friendship and love of society — Mr. and Mrs. Procter — Mr. 
and Mrs. Basil Montagu — Henry Roscoe, Herr Moscheles, 
Chevalier Neukomm, and N. P. Willis — Lady Blessington and 
Count D'Orsay — Society at Gore House — Bon mots — La 
Guiccioli — Interviews with Landor, Isaac Disraeli, and M. 
Rio — Lord Lytton — Sydney Smith — Miss Mitford and John 
Kenyon — George Darley — Justice Talfourd — Mr. Browning — 
George Grote — Mr. and Mrs. Howitt — Family relations — 
Deaths of Dr. Rutter and Mrs. Rathbone, .... 74 

CHAPTER VI. 

Personal and social life in London from 1834 to 1841 — Rogers, 
the Poet-Banker — Lady Morgan — Miss Landon — Mrs. Somer- 
ville — Visits to Paris — Parisian celebrities — The Duchess 
d'Abrantes — Paul de Kock — Alfred de Vigny — Rachel — Mile. 
Mars — Prince Louis Napoleon — The Misses Berry — Southey 
— Miss Sedgwick, no 

CHAPTER VII. 

1 rofessional experiences as a musical critic between 1834 and 
1841 — Original gifcs and acquirements — Persistence of princi- 
ple — Development of taste — Illustrative, extracts from jour- 
nals — Visits to France in 1836, 1837, and 1839 — Interview 
with Chopin — Acquaintance with systems of Wilhem and 
Mainzer — National Singing-schools in England — Tours in 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Germany, 1839, 1840, 1841 — Intimacy with, and letters from, 
Mendelssohn — Journey in company with him and Moscheles 
— Stay at Leipsic — Anecdotes of Mendelssohn — Schuman — 
Sonnet to Mendelssohn's son — Subsequent letters — Publica- 
tion of " Music and Manners," etc., ..... 145 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Literary life from 1841 to 1851 — Connection with " Athenaeum" — 
Contributions to other serials — Letter from Douglas Jerrold 
— Edits "Ladies' Companion" — Minor Poems — Drama of 
" Old Love and New Fortune " — Miss Mitford's opinion of it, 178 

CHAPTER IX. 

Private and social life from 1841 to 1851 — Residence in Victoria 
Square — An affaire du cceur — Artistic friendships — Mrs. 
Browning — Sir William Molesworth — George B. Maule — 
Travels — Extracts from journals — Notes on pictures — Profes- 
sor Bendemann — Kaulbach — Letters and sonnets from 
"Athenaeum" — Last letter from Mendelssohn — Visit to In- 
terlachen — List of acquaintances — Langtree — Thomas Camp- 
bell — Rejection of offer of marriage — Pressure of calamities — 
Illness of his sister — Death of Mrs. Chorley, . . . 185 

CHAPTER X. 

Musical criticism between 1 841 and 185 1 — Recognition of his in- 
fluence — Mercenaiy propositions — Letter from Meyerbeer — 
Employment as a librettist — Disappointments and vexations 
— Intimacies with M. Liszt and Madame Viardot — Chopin — 
Sonnet on his death — Berlioz — Relations between artists and 
critics — A protege, 214 

CHAPTER XI. 

Literary life from 1852 to 1872 — Critical labors in " Athenaeum" 
— Changes observable in tone — Severity to works of friends — 
Discernment — Letter from Mr. Procter — Letters from Nathan- 
iel and Mrs. Hawthorne — Versatility — Examples — Reviews of 
Mr. Wilkie Collins, and Mr. Coventry Patmore — Dramatic 



CONTENTS. 



authorship — "The Love-lock" — " Duchess Eleanour " — Pub- 
lishes " Roccabella " — Analysis and extracts — Lettei-s from 
Dickens and Hawthorne — Dedication to Mrs. Browning — 
Letters from Mr. Browning — Translation of " Fairy Gold " — 
Biographical sketch of Mendelssohn — Publishes " The Pro- 
digy " — Edits Miss Mitford's Letters — Engaged on autobio- 
graphy until his death, , 224 

CHAPTER XII. 

Career as a musical critic from 1852 to 1868 — Recognition of his 
influence — Estimates by Sir Michael Costa and Mr. Henry 
Leslie — Practical testimony — Employment as a writer for 
music — Effects of his criticism — " Modern German Music" — 
Extracts — " Thirty Years' Musical Recollections" — Extracts 
— Lectures — Interest in musical enterprise — Birmingham 
Festivals — Crystal Palace Concerts and Handel Festivals — 
Retirement from " Athenaeum," 249 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Private and social life from 1852 to 1872 — Residence in Eaton 
Place — Description of the house — Parties — Extracts from 
letter to Liverpool — Opposition to "Spiritualistic" mania 
— Friendship with Charles Dickens — Letters from him — Visits 
to Gad's Hill — Miss Dickens' reminiscences — Mr. Procter — 
Hawthorne — Other associates — Deaths of Miss Mitford and 
Sir Wm. Molesworth — Letter to Liverpool — Illness and death 
of his sister — Memorial sketch of his brother John's career — 
Letter from Mr. Carlyle — Professor Ticknor — Accession of 
fortune — Mental depression, loneliness, and failing health — 
A fatal expedient — Travels — Letter from Spain — Scarbo- 
rough — Wakehurst Place — Memory of early friendship — Let- 
ters — Affectionate relations with Mr. Benson Rathbone — 
Reminiscences — Death of Dickens — Acceleration of organic 
disease — Letters to Liverpool — His death, and funeral, . . 265 



REMINISCENCES 

OF 

HENRY FOTHERGILL CHORLEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

Autobiography. — Chorley Family. — Early Life and Training in Lan- 
cashire. 

WITH respect to the family history and the early 
life and training of Henry Fothergill Chorley, 
the " Autobiography " which he was preparing for pub- 
lication at the time of his death, and which that event 
found in an unfinished state, is sufficiently full and com- 
plete. The following extracts from it are interesting not 
only for their personal sketches and incidents, but as a 
rather stirring picture of one aspect of rural life in 
England during the early years of the century. 

" I am the third son and fourth child of John and Jane 
Chorley, and was born on the 15th of December, 1808, at 
Blackley Hurst, a house belonging to the Catholic family of 
the Gerards, near Billinge in Lancashire. My father and 
mother were nominally members of the Society of Friends, 
though neither the one nor the other ever wore the dress of 
that religious body, nor conformed to its ascetic discipline 
and testimonies. They were, both of them, superior and 



2 REMINISCENCES OE CHORLEY. 

singular persons ; and, though differing widely in disposition 
and temperament, maintained an unusual amount of affec- 
tion for each other during their married life, terminated, 
after sixteen years, by the sudden death of my father, on the 
15 th of April, 1 8 16. 

" The Chorleys are an old family belonging to the gentry 
of Lancashire, in old times one of credit and substance. 
Two of its members,- however, were beheaded at Preston, in 
Lancashire, in chastisement for their having gone out with 
the Stuarts in 17 15, and their landed property was then con- 
fiscated. Since that time, the principal branch of the family, 
to which I belong, and of which I am the last but one, and 
youngest male survivor, has been gradually decaying. My 
forefathers — at least my grandfather, Alexander Chorley, 
who was an ironmaster at Stanley-Bank, near Ashton-in- 
Mackerfield, in Lancashire — had not the gift of keeping or of 
making money. They were people of great mother-wit, racy 
humor, and generous dispositions, but sanguine and self-willed. 
My grandmother Chorley was a Fothergill, belonging to 
another north-country family of some mark, which yielded a 
popular physician to London and a redoubtable preacher to 
the Society of Friends. She was a woman of strong, severe 
sense. She brought her husband four sons, of whom my 
father was the eldest, and nine daughters. The sons ail 
perished in the very prime of life. My father dropped down 
dead in his counting-house. My uncle Henry was drowned 
when on a voyage down the Rio del Plata, having fallen 
overboard when he was asleep. My uncle, James Fother- 
gill, died young, of a wasted constitution ; my uncle Charles, 
of yellow fever, in New Orleans. The daughters were 
longer lived. All are now gone. 

" There w r as something in the training of these children 
Sufficiently out of the .common routine to be worth dwelling 
on. Born, all of them, as I have said, in membership of the 



CHORLE Y FA MIL Y. 3 

Society of Friends, and their mother a rigid woman, they 
were still educated — or rather educated themselves — with 
no severity, with no outward conformity to the dress and 
statutes of that strange body of religionists. My grandfather 
would not, my grandmother could not, control them ; for a 
more original, self-willed family, I believe, was never born 
on the earth, nor one more genially endowed with those 
tastes and fancies which abide no restraint nor abnegation 
of indulgence. What is called " the artist temperament " 
belonged to many of them. They wrote verses far above the 
average of amateur verse ; they read something of French 
and Italian. Two or three of them had aptitude for draw- 
ing ; and almost all of them a love for out-of-the-way reading, 
and a raciness of evmcasion and repartee to which I have 
since met notb'n^ similar. 

" My annt xs^ebecca, the eldest but one, had more power 
to entertain others by her quaint sayings and her thoroughly 
peculiar fancies than most women I have known. She 
retained it through changes, losses, and deaths, and, till the 
last, kept the same brightness of spirit and warmth of heart 
which made her so fascinating as a girl, in spite of a sus- 
picious and hot temper. When scarcely fifteen, chancing to 
stumble on a matrimonial advertisement in a newspaper, she 
answered it, so skilfully assuming the character of an older 
woman ready to treat, that a reply came directly. Her 
anonymous correspondent seemed to be in earnest, and a 
gentleman, and wrote with such interest that she wrote again, 
still keeping up the masquerade. The correspondence went 
©n, the gentleman waxing warmer and warmer, till he pressed 
his incognita for her name and address, declaring that he 
would come from the furthest corner of England, merely to 
make the acquaintance of the woman who could write with 
such spirit and sweetness, without binding her in any way. 
Then the girl became terrified, and wrote no more. It was 



4 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

a whimsical trait in her character, that for years and years, 
long after she was a woman grown, my aunt, whose hand- 
writing was peculiar, would never sign her name at a water- 
ing-place or in any public book lest she should be identified. 

" She was staying, as a girl, many years ago, in a country- 
house far removed from towns and markets, when one day 
the family was startled by the announced visit of a very 
large party from a distance, who counted on finding a dinner. 
The larder of the house, though a hospitable one, happened 
by unlucky chance, to be that day well nigh as bare as thai 
of Wolfs Crag on the day of Sir William Ashtorfs visit, so 
well provided for by Caleb Balderstone. The hostess went 
hither and thither in despair. Somehow or other the 
material of the entertainment was got together, or represented, 
one thing only wanting — the dessert. Nothing was to be 
found save a basket of hard, green pears, set aside for bak- 
ing. For better for worse, however, by the whimsical girl's 
counsel, they were presented. When she saw them coming, 
she cleared her throat, and in an audible voice said to her 
hostess, at the head of the table, ' Are not those the famous 
Cleopatra pears ? ' She used dryly to add, in later years, 
when, mocking at herself, she told this anecdote, * My dears, 
after that no one thought of refusing them. The dish was 
cleared.' 

" ' Cleopatra pears ' became a by-word in our family. 
They are not a bad symbol of much that can be made to 
pass muster — nay, and become popular. 

" This family of my grandfather's, too, were remarkable 
for a love of the marvellous ; — strange among persons 
generally more vigorous than tender in their composition ; — 
strange, at least in their day, when nervous excitement had 
not taken the lamentable form of superstition which we have 
lately lived to see it assume. They noted omens ; they 
dreamt dreams ; they saw ghosts. They had their own 



CHORLE Y FA MIL Y. 5 

stories, and warnings, and instances, and those who doubted 
and cross-questioned found it better not to do so a second 
time, since the Chorleys were not a patient or humble-minded 
folk, troubled with self-mistrust. In their day, people with 
narrow means (and my grandfather was a poor and embar- 
rassed man) stayed much at home ; and the amount of 
liberal culture which these girls, under Quaker rules, and 
under the more iron grasp of narrow fortunes, contrived to 
get for themselves, in a remote village, was something 
remarkable. There can hardly be such households again, 
now that intercourse is so easy, now that books are so cheap. 
" My mother's maiden name was Jane Wilkinson. She 
was the child of a second marriage, born after the death of 
her father. On her mother's side, she belonged to an old 
Cumberland family of the name of Brownsword. These 
Brownswords, again, were not common-place people, though 
as far asunder from my father's family as north is from south. 
My mother's mother was a woman of high spirits and 
indomitable courage — a strange mixture of thrift and gener- 
osity, of cheerful self-sacrifice and overweening tyranny. 
She had been called on when a mere girl to decide and to 
endure ; since, at the age of eighteen, she was sent by her 
parents on horseback, behind an old servant, to arrange and 
superintend the funeral of a brother who had died at a dis- 
tance from home. She was a devoted sick nurse, and suc- 
cessively watched the deathbeds of her parents, who departed 
at a patriarchal age, of her first husband, Thomas Rutter, a 
merchant of Liverpool, by whom she. had a son, and of a 
favorite sister ; and in this capacity, was gentle, untiring, 
and intrepid ; but in smooth water, she was too active, too 
desirous of domineering, too resolute to economise where 
no economy was necessary, too full of strong will, as well as 
of strong wit, to be judicious as a mother or indulgent as the 
head of a family. ' Give not the staff out of thy hand /' was 



6 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

a phrase often in her mouth, after her faculties had failed 
her. Obeyed she would be, and was ; for in the world to 
which she belonged, the love of child to parent was expected 
to come as a matter of certainty and of duty. 

" My mother, at least, was an affectionate and a dutiful, if 
not an obedient, daughter. She had the timid, tremulous 
organization said to belong to an old man's child ; and 
being full of tastes and capacities for enjoyment, with which 
her more robust parent had no sympathy, and more alive to 
the pain of rebuke than any one I have known, managed to 
creep betwixt the meshes of the net of household discipline, 
to peep at what stood with her for the world, and to indulge 
her fancies for poetry, romance, and art (as art was under- 
stood in those primitive, narrow days). Had she fallen into 
a more genial soil, she might have won distinction as an 
authoress ; since, when a mere child, living in a quiet market- 
town in Cumberland, she showed not so much the desire to 
scribble as the power to imitate, which precedes, in ninety- 
nine cases out of a hundred, the power to create. I have 
before me the manuscript of a novel, the formal childish 
writing beautiful, the age of its writer considered, and perfect 
as to spelling, by which it is evident that the small person 
had got hold of 'Evelina' — had caught the tone of the 
characters and the time of the dialogue. To the very last 
years of her life she could amuse herself and relieve her 
mind by writing verses ; and in the rhymes of the old woman, 
as well as. of the girl, there is a vein of true poetry, of real 
fancy, and of real feeling. She was very lovely on a small 
scale, with shy eyes, a fresh complexion, and a perfectly- 
formed mouth, and hair of that sunny color which woman- 
hood ripens into auburn. While she was a girl, her widowed 
mother, who had been for some time resident at her native 
place, Wigton in Cumberland, brought her to live in Liver- 
pool ; being induced to change her residence by the settle- 



EARLY LIFE AND TRAINING. y 

ment there of my mother's half-brother, John Rutter, who, 
for nearly half a century, honorably practised physic in that 
place. 

" Of him, too, I must, I must say a word, at the risk of 
being over elaborate in matters of pedigree and family-picture, 
because he, too, was a character, in some respects, rare at 
any time, but singularly rare, considering the circumstances 
and opportunities of his position. God never created a more 
noble-hearted, generous man than he was ; few men have 
ever been more zealous in their calling, less pedantic in the 
task of perpetual self education and qualification. A dread 
of the shame of debt, an excellent liberality in the exercise 
of his profession, the curious mixture of personal modesty 
and sagacious decision in his medical practice, possibly, too, 
his handsome person, established him in his birth-place, 
after years of probation, as first physician ; but his ways 
were as little like the world's ordinary ways as those of 
the rest of the persons among whom we four Chorley 
children were brought up. He had remarkable stores of 
knowledge, which to the last he increased, yet he could not 
endure intellectual society, the collision and discussion of 
opinions. Born and remaining till his decease a member of 
the Society of Friends, he had nothing in common with their 
habits or requirements, read what he pleased, dressed as he 
pleased, for relaxation became a keen whist player (which 
suited his taciturn habits). A good deal courted, I have 
reason to think, by women when he was young, no man was 
less throughout his life a courtier of women — perhaps, 
because being honorable beyond his kind he never felt 
justified in thinking of marriage till he had reached the age 
at which romance (on either side) ceases, and convenience 
begins. At that point, family affection brought a charge 
upon him (it would be ungrateful to say, cast a burden into 
his lap), which he accepted wholly, nobly, devotedly ; and 



8 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

the acceptance of which so occupied him as to leave him 
with small time or fancy for more selfish interests. At my 
father's death he came forward to stand betwixt his half- 
sister, with her four children, and penury • and thencefor- 
ward his life seemed to find its duties and, in some degree, 
I am glad to think, its rewards also, in the family whom he 
had adopted. 

" Over all these original, imperfectly-educated persons, 
the ordinances and the usages of the Society of Friends hung 
like, a pall of conformity, heavy enough to inspire them with 
certain characteristics, but so oppressive as to make escape 
and insincerity inevitable. It would be difficult to conceive 
a worse education for mind and heart. On the one side, a 
narrow, ascetic, mystical sectarianism, including the minute 
formalities of discipline, but not including the rallying-points 
of an established creed ; on the other, worldly pursuits and 
pleasures, partaken of by snatches, without those safeguards 
which good breeding and good manners substitute for higher 
moral principle and precept among people of the world. I 
have always rated those from whom I have sprung on both 
sides, in no respect more highly than in this, that people of 
their quick spirits and vigorous intellect were so little affected 
by such training. 

" Then, with persons of lively humor, the forms of worship 
in use among the Society of Friends, the curious manifesta- 
tions of scruple among the narrow, and the adroit relaxations 
of discipline among the more genial, were not calculated to 
engender that spirit of reverence without which there is no 
religious training for the young. There was a feature in the 
preaching among the Society of Friends especially calculated 
to annoy persons of quick temperament and rebellious 
understandings, namely, the personality which at times 
could be thrown into it. Not only in the domestic visits, 
which the accepted ministers of the society are in the habit 



EARL Y LIFE AND TRAINING. g 

of paying to all families in membership, but on such painful 
occasions as funerals (which are attended by female as well 
as male relatives of the deceased) have I heard those known 
to be liberal or suspected of disaffection marked out for 
reproof and counsel, with a directness of application which 
admitted of no mistake on the part of any hearer. The last 
time that I ever entered a Friends' meeting-house was to 
attend the funeral of my good and honored uncle, which was 
largely attended by many of his townsfolk, who loved his 
memory. I was one of a group of survivors thus lectured 
by a loud, harsh, ignorant man, who on account of our having 
quitted the Society, would not lose so timely a chance of admin- 
istering a severe and warning castigation. It was impossible 
to feel either resentment or shame. The insults of fanatical 
self-importance have no power over those against whom they 
are launched, except they fall on persons of bad conscience 
or credulous habits of mind ; but there is many a one and 
many another whom such training on the one hand, and such 
arrogance on the other, have driven loose from all their 
early moorings, and have flung into that shifting sea of 
contempt for all religious profession and disbelief in all 
creeds which it is most perilous for the young to traverse. 

" This was not the case, happily, with either my father or 
my mother; yet they did not pass through such a discipline 
of education, which is no education, without bad results to 
themselves and to their children. We saw from infancy the 
statutes of the Society to which we nominally belonged 
evaded ; for my mother painted flowers and practised music. 
We conceived an intense and weary distaste for the manner 
of worship, in which the general alternatives were tiresome 
silence or the maunderings of some uncouth and illiterate 
person ; and yet we heard the world and the world's usages 
criticised as sharply as if they were not in an awkward way 
approached and imitated by our parents. 
i* 



10 REMINISCENCES 0E CIIORLEY. 

" It was yet another disadvantage, in one respect, that we 
were born and brought up in the country without compan- 
ionship with other children. On my father's marriage with 
my mother, they set up house in a small cottage not far from 
Warrington, which had been originally, I suspect, a barn, 
subsequently divided into closets rather than rooms, to serve 
as shooting-box for its owner, or pleasure-house for some one 

among his sultanas. This owner, Colonel , belonging 

to a family who had considerable landed property in Lanca- 
shire and Cheshire, was one of those wild provincial imita- 
tions of the town Mohocks — the Camelfords and Delavals — 
the race of which is, I hope, extinct, though they have left 
behind them traces and traditions, of which persons brought 
up in towns have little idea. From among such people and 
such traditions did the Brontl 1 sisters gather the materials 
for their novels — books which will have a value for the future 
historian of English society, if even they cease to be read for 
the rude power and romance put forth in them. Colonel 

was a brutal, licentious man, full of life and spirits 

for every quality of mischief, who made the corner of Lanca- 
shire in which he lived ring with tales of his debauchery and 
of his practical jokes. He it was who invited a starved com- 
pany of mountebanks to dine with the clergyman at Newton- 
in-the-Willows on Sunday, and stationed himself in the post- 
office opposite, to see the discomfiture of the poor creatures 
as they came out, when the hoax should be discovered. But 
the heartless jester sat there in vain. The clergyman was a 
kind man, and on comparing notes with player-king, player- 
queen, pantaloon, clown, and the rest, as they gradually 
assembled, discovered how all had been tricked. 'Well,' 
said he, ' ladies and gentlemen, I must not lose the pleasure 
of your company, though I had not the pleasure of, inviting 
you;' and he detained them to dinner and (the story goes 
on to say) fed them well, leaving to their tormentor the 



EARL Y LIFE AND TRAINING. 



IT 



pleasure of sitting and waiting. But it was not every one 
who had courage or power, like this cordial parson, thus to 

thwart the will and pleasure of Colonel , so that his 

name became a terror in the district. His death, caused by 
apoplexy — mistaken for a drunken fit by his pot-companion? 
— was sudden and awful ; and after his death were circulated 
the usual stories ; such as, that he really was not dead, but 
had allowed a figure to be buried, by way of escape from his 
creditors ; that ' he walked,' and the like. It is certain that 
the guests of my father and mother who visited them at 
Deane Cottage believed themselves to have been disturbed 
there by some unaccountable noises, others by apparitions; 

and the bad reputation which Colonel ■ left behind him 

in some sort communicated itself to every residence belong- 
ing to him. Golborne Park was also reputed to be the scene 
of supernatural visitations ; and in that house too, the members 
of my father's family conceived themselves to have witnessed 
unearthly appearances. But those who are apt to note 
ghostly wonders, will find them everywhere; and as expe- 
rience has made me familiar with the active imaginations of 
the race to which I belong, I cannot believe that any of the 
tales which I heard from an early age, told and re-told with 
a minuteness of circumstance, which increased in precision 
and polish as time went on, are more to be relied on than the 
majority of their fascinating family. I recur to them, not as 
incidents which I can warrant as having happened, but 
merely because their influence gave a breath and a tincture 
to the atmosphere in which we were born and brought up. I 
cannot recollect that we ever experienced any practical or 
active suffering from the fear of ghosts, as children ; but I, 
for one, certainly believed in their existence as a child, in 
imitation of, and reliance on, the elder people who were above 
and about me. 

" My mother was married the day when she came of age 



12 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

— more unformed in character, I imagine, than most girls 
who have reached the age of twenty-one and entered mar- 
ried life. With her, this want of form merely implied want 
of courage, not want of affection, not want of gifts, many 
and various, not want of desire to do what was right. 
Courage my father was not able to give her. Perhaps they 
did not live long enough together for him to perceive its 
absence ; perhaps the gentleness may have been a charac- 
teristic which would have endeared her to him had he 
thought upon it. But, indeed, so far as I can learn or recol- 
lect, he had been as little trained as she was ; and both he 
and she were subject to such influences of a sectarian posi- 
tion as would defy or neutralize any training whatsoever, 
supposing the children subjected to them were by nature 
endowed with genius. I suspect that they loved each other 
dearly, and thought little of the future — nothing that the 
four children whom they brought into the world were to 
come after them, and however like them, must be ' other, 
though the same.' And they married, as I have said, to 
live in a retired part of Lancashire, and early to make 
acquaintance with difficulties of fortune. My mother 
inherited some money from her north-country ancestors, but 
willingly and trustingly (without compulsion or question) 
allowed a portion of this to be absorbed in my father's busi- 
ness, which was that of an iron-worker, at Ashton-in-Mack- 
erfield, and which, from the time of his marriage, became 
less and less profitable. Her married life was a happy one, 
but it was largely so because she never inquired nor looked 
forward. She had her materials for enjoyment within her- 
self and in the love of those close to her. She inherited 
frorn the North her simple tastes and economical habits, 
and probably had less of show, and luxury, and enjoyment 
out of the money which came to her by inheritance, and 



CHILDISH RE CQLLE C TIONS. \ 3 

lived to see it do less good, than most women, young, beau- 
tiful, and gifted, who have ever inherited money. 

" My sister was born at Deane Cottage ; my eldest 
brother at Penswick House — a house of little more preten- 
sion, which stood by the side of a by-road, and belonged to 
a family of Catholics. My brother John and, lastly, myself 
were born at Blackley Hurst. This was a dilapidated 
country-seat, near Billinge, in Lancashire, one of those 
which belonged to the Catholic family of the Gerards, and 
which was let to my father at a reduced rent. The country 
thereabouts, in those days thinly sprinkled with inhabitants, 
is open and varied, affording some wide prospects, and 
diversified by a range of hills, some of which are crowned 
with beacons so marked in form as to make on a child's 
mind that impression at once real, but visionary, which 
never afterwards fades out of it. It is upwards of half a 
century since I have set eyes on any corner of that district^ 
which I left when little more than an infant. Yet it has 
grown into my heart, and rises before me as I write, as a 
pleasant, breezy landscape or landscapes. 

" If my own recollections go back to a very early date in 
life, it is probably because my powers of observation were 
prematurely sharpened by being either left to myself or 
living with grown people. As boys from childhood, my two 
brothers ' cronied ' together, leaving the youngest, weakest, 
and ugliest as the odd one ; and my sister early became my 
mother's companion. I have thus, from infancy, been alone 
as regards family confidence or comradeship ; and the sub- 
sequent periods of life at which this condition of solitude 
has been partly counteracted have been few and far 
between. My father was fond of me, however, as of a sort 
of Benjami?i, since he used to take me on his knee while 
he quoted that line from Chaucer : 

' And spare my Gamelyn, because he's young.' 



14 



REMINISCENCES OF CIIORLEY. 



I think, too, he must have discerned something of the adven- 
turer in my composition ; for I recollect his saying, when I 
was a small child, that ' if I were turned loose in the streets 
of London, he should have no fear of my losing my way.' 

" We were all quaint children : I suppose, from our cir- 
cumstances of fortune and position. We invented names, 
and plays, and novels (my sister was a famous inventor, and 
much in request), and made a children's life in that old 
house, with its neglected shrubberies, far different from the 
lives of children who go to school or have playfellows, or 
belong to people who are rich and who are not original. 

"We had names and nomenclatures of our own; the 
filaments that straggled from the twigs of an old honey- 
suckle, that, with aid of a tall white rose-tree, clambered 
half-way up a larch at the spot where a path down to the 
garden turned off from the grass-plot in front of the house, 
were 'Hercules' back,' and so on. I cannot recollect either 
learning to read or to write ; but a letter exists written by 
me before I was three years and a half old ; and before that 
time, I had heard and caught up verses, since I distinctly 
recollect weeping at an elegy called ' The Nun' (by whom I 
do not remember), which began : 

' With each perfection dawning in her mind, 
All Beauty's treasure opening on her cheek/ 

and at a verse in ' Jemmy Dawson : ' 

' O then, her mourning-coach was called, 
The sledge moved slowly on before ; 
Though borne in a triumphal car, 

She had not loved her favorite more ! ' 

" I have since never endured the sorrow of parting and 
bereavement (and few of my age have endured that sorrow 
much oftener) without this stanza rising up to my mind 



CHILDISH RE COLLE C TTOXS. 



15 



unbidden. Such infant impressions, made on fancy and 
feeling are indelible. I have no remembrance of reading any 
child's book till at a much later period, nor of having been 
set to read at any task. Some teaching there was, but it 
could not have been heavy or steadily enforced ; but dreams, 
and notions, and humors had already grown into my mind 
untaught, never to be dislodged thence. 

" When I was somewhere about four years old, my father 
removed from Blackley Hurst to Smithy Brook, a square, 
ugly, new house- by the side of the road betwixt Warrington 
and Wigan, near the latter town, with a square, ugly new gar- 
den. Matters were going ill with the lock-making business; 
and the forlorn country-seat where I was born was tumbling 
down with damp and dry-rot ; but for us children the change 
was a change for the worse. The high road was mean and 
beaten — in no respect rural. We had squalid cottages close 
to us ; and from a more remote cluster of these, called 
Goose Green, came that child's first sorrow which is called 
a schoolmaster; by whom our reading, writing, and ciphering 
were to be perfected. He was an inefficient, civil old crea- 
ture — who spoke broad Lancashire, at which we mocked — ■ 
in no respect qualified to inspire any one with a love for 
learning, or a fear of himself. I think he must have taught 
me the rudiments of arithmetic, since I distinctly recollect the 
loathing I conceived of slate and pencil, and sitting over my 
sum with a mind wandering heaven knows where — beyond 
the reach or range, at all events, of any work which was to 
be done. But delights were to be got out of the slate ; it 
was an amusement to try to draw on it; and my early draw- 
ings took no more picturesque forms than recurring borders 
and arabesques, which were dignified by the name of 'belt- 
ages,' and in which the fancy for decoration (if I may not 
call it a love of art) manifested itself distinctly. 

" Among the other childish recollections of that time, were 



1 6 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

preparations to be made against a gang of housebreakers, 
headed by a notorious man of the name of George Lyon, and 
the experiences of death in the decease of a neighbor's son 
by scarlet fever, and of an aged woman, Mrs. Bradshaw, who 
had lived on the opposite side of the lane to our house, and 
who had been good-natured to us when children. The last 
is printed into my mind, by recollecting how my mother was 
called in to mediate among the survivors, who were at dag- 
gers drawn, which should inherit * the silk gown,' the most 
precious among the effects of the deceased, who was, yet, no 
pauper. Then there were such graver events (little graver 
however, to a child) as the escape from Elba of Bonaparte — 
and, in those days, nine out of ten Dissenting men and 
women were Bonapartists — and the excitement produced in 
harassed war-worn England by the intelligence. It is a 
mistake to fancy that children take no part in such things, or 
that they do so as merely apeing the serious business of their 
elders. Country children, at least, are, or were, stirred by 
public events without fully understanding their entire import 
and bearing ; and I do not remember the day of my life at 
which I did not earnestly believe that I was a Liberal, and 
feel that indignation against 'the powers that be' which time 
has made less violent. 

" It was while we were living at Smithy Brook, that I rec- 
ollect first hearing music, and hearing it with that passion 
which, if it had been understood and provided for, might 
possibly have conducted me to some eminence in the art. 
My mother, as I have said, who possessed a good deal of the 
artist temperament, had struggled to learn to play on the 
pianoforte after she was a married woman, of course with 
small success ; for her fingers were stiff, and her lessons had 
been few, and her master, a country organist, was a bad one. 
Her only care, moreover, was to pick out Scotch, or Irish, 
or Welsh melodies, or the few songs which she had heard as 



CHILDISH RE CO LIE C TIONS. 



17 



fashionable during her honeymoon visit to London in 1800. 
So far as I can recollect, her three music-books contained 
two single morsels by composers of credit, Haydn's ' Mer- 
maid's Song,' and an arrangement of Handel's 'Water 
Music' The first she used to sing somehow with a sweet 
but undeveloped voice ; the latter was beyond her reach. 
And I hardly know why I should have delighted to open the 
book at that page if it had not been that the name 'Water 
Music ' may have suggested something rich and pompous. 
I cannot explain when or where I began to associate the 
printed symbols with the possible sounds of music. But long 
ere I could put my hand on a pianoforte, I could read the 
notes somehow, and somehow represent to myself that which 
they signified. 

" We removed, early in the year 18 16, from Smithy Brook 
to Green End, about three miles from St. Helens, in Lanca- 
shire. This had been a small, old-fashioned house to which 
a new portion, or wing, had been added, the whole making a 
pleasant, irregular residence. The garden was full of cherry- 
trees, and one had been trained over the window of the 
nursery or school- room. The sweep before the house was 
very rich in flowering shrubs of the commoner kinds — double- 
blossomed cherries, lilacs, locust-trees, laburnums, guelder- 
roses, syringas ; and the gate which looked towards Billinge 
Hill, and from which the house where I was born was 
distinctly visible, was overshadowed by a fine lime-tree, 
which, in summer, was full of fragrance, and, as Coleridge 
says, " musical with bees." The enjoyment of that peaceful 
view, and of those country things was felt at the time, and 
lives in my mind freshly now ; and the sight of one of the 
well-known shrubs in St. James's Park, or, even more, the 
scent, has again and again taken me off to those old days like 
a spell, when I have been bustling towards Temple Bar, with 
my head full of pain, my heart of care, and my pocket of 



1 8 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

proofs. Even now, while I but write about the place, I am 
stopped, by a sort of sadness, to ask if such sadness be real, 
or merely that sentimentality which certain persons never 
outgrow. The picture, however, is clear, and abounding in 
shade and blossom at all events. And Green End seems to 
me now the happiest place of residence I ever inhabited. 
From it we removed to Liverpool in the year 1819-20. I 
have never seen it since, nor since then sojourned in the 
country, save as a rare visitor. But I often think that it is 
town-birds who best relish and appreciate country sights, 
sounds, and things ; and know that with myself, at least — 
though I should not be believed on oath by any friend 
or acquaintance I have — it is a love ' that fadeth not 
away.' The great and intimate pleasure which landscape 
painting has always given me, the satisfaction I find in the 
wonderful new photographs of bare trees which I have lived 
to see brought to such perfection, date back, I believe, to 
those three years betwixt the seventh and tenth of my life. 

"We had hardly been settled in this pleasant place many 
weeks before the 15th of April, 18 16, arrived. On that day 
my father, who was used to ride away to his lock-making 
business, took leave of my mother as usual, and came home 
no more, since he fell dead from the seat before his counting- 
house desk. Times had been growing worse with him for 
some years, and this it may have been which had caused the 
haggard look and the loss of bulk, remarked after his death ; 
or they may have been sign's of the organic heart-disease 
which took him from us. The dismay, terror, and confusion 
of those clays is like a thing of last week; and every minute 
detail comes back to me as. I begin to think over the painful 
scene. ' My mother was like some timid creature broken to 
pieces by the shock of an earthquake, unable to do much 
more than weep, and submit, and endure. On hearing the 
news of her husband's sudden illness (for thus was the 



CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS. 



l 9 



catastrophe broken to her), she had set off from Green End, 
on foot, to get to him ; but she was met in the road, at the 
distance of a mile or two from the house, by kind friends who 
were hastening to her. Then it was necessary to bring 
relatives together, and my mother's and my father's had not 
much cordiality one for the other ; and then there was the 
day of the funeral, and the dinner after the funeral. We 
were within the pale of old country and Dissenting customs. 
It was necessary that a dinner should be given after the 
funeral, though it was agreed on both sides of the house that 
ruin was in it. And, by the usages of the sect to which my 
parents nominally belonged, females as well as males attended 
the dead to their last home. My father's is in the graveyard 
of a small meeting-house belonging to the Society of Friends 
at Penketh, not far from Warrington, at the edge of a 
patch of common-land ; a small, still resting-place, in which 
the separate tenements were distinguished only by turfed 
mounds. Time has softened the usages of the Society of 
Friends in this respect. They have now tombstones in their 
graveyards, simply inscribed with name, age, and date of 
decease." 



CHAPTER II. 

Autobiography — Continued. 

g\N my father's death, my mother's half-brother, John 
V^/ Rutter, of Liverpool, stood betwixt herself and want. 
There was no money on the other side of the house which 
could have availed for our assistance. There was no male 
relative to interpose ; and I think there was not any extreme 
tenderness for our young and timid mother, than whom I 
have known no being less qualified to cope with the practical 
difficulties of life. We remained at Green End betwixt 
three and four years, which seem to me now double that 
length of time ; perhaps because they were years of waken- 
ing — years, too, of some suffering ; and then, for the first 
time, I began to feel the yearnings for companionship which 
beset one of an affectionate nature, a fanciful imagination, 
and a social humor, placed by circumstances in a solitary 
position. On her widowhood, my mother possessed herself 
of my sister as her chosen companion, and my two elder 
brothers, as I have said, ' cronied' together. I was the 
smallest, the worst-looking, the most nervous ; not a coward, 
though reported such, because of great physical excitability ; 
totally inexpert with my hands and at all the manly games 
in which boys delight ; therefore mocked at, and left alone, 
without any excessive persecution, but without any influence 
to encourage, assist, or befriend me. 

" During a part of our stay at Green End, we had private 
tutors, such as they were. One, a man of humble origin, 



CHILDISH RE CO LIE C TIONS. 2 1 

who had aspired to ordination in the Church, and filled up 
the interval till he could be appointed to a Yorkshire curacy 
by teaching us some Latin. Another, a curiosity in the 
shape of a crack-brained Irish Methodist, who used to 
teach us or not, as pleased him ; to fly into rages, and to 
start away into eccentric readings of books totally beyond 
our years and capacity : a being, in short, as utterly unfit to 
restrain four singular and solitary children as any creature 
that could have been fished up from the depths of Ireland 
or the bottoms of Methodism. The teaching came to 
nought ; the connection could not last ; and after a vain 
trial or two more to procure for us something more orderly 
and customary in the way of private education, we three 
boys were put to a not bad day-school at St. Helens, where 
we were 'brought on,' as the school-phrase is, in the classi- 
cal languages, and in writing and arithmetic, and, I think, 
were well considered by the masters. 

" But from first to last, to me all schooling was intoler- 
able. I was hopelessly idle — perhaps because, in some 
things, I was precociously quick, having been started in the 
world with a memory of no common compass and strength, 
and with that sort of divi?ii?tg nature which is one of the 
elements of the artist temperament. Had this been under- 
stood, and had this been worked towards in forming charac- 
ter and in developing such talents as God gave me, my life 
might have yielded special results, in place of the universal 
indications which are all it ever will yield. But this was 
not seen, not apprehended, perhaps could not be ; and I 
had then, as now, a physically feeble temperament, in which 
irritability and languor were oddly mixed up. This may 
have saved me from desperate outbreaks to get at a life I 
liked, which I might else have ventured. Such resisting 
power as I had was merely sufficient to prevent my learning 
anything that I did not covet to learn, completely or 



22 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

correctly. Had I been apprenticed to a musician, or to a 
draftsman, or to an architect, I fancy I might have become 
distinguished. As it was, Latin and Greek did me small 
good j and as I had little company to my liking (though, let 
me again remember, little unkindness), the one weakest gift 
which belonged to the others — a certain fantasy and taste 
for numbers — must needs push itself forward, since no 
stronger member of its family had room or play ; and I 
began, almost as soon as I could begin to write, to divert 
myself, and to excite attention among injudicious folk, by 
scribbling. 

" Probably no English children of the next generation 
will ever be made to understand how intense is the value, 
and how lasting the impression, of the things that speak to 
the mind of a child in my plight, as pleasures and revela- 
tions. A character in those days, whom I regarded with 
extreme curiosity and interest, was an 6#-Catholic priest. 
He had left the Jesuits' College at Douai, had embraced 
Protestantism, had made his escape from France during the 
troubles of the first Revolution, and was accustomed to re- 
count the breathless perils of his escape, in a sort of a set 
narration, which he was asked to deliver at the little tea- 
drinkings and gatherings round about. Of this described 
adventure, which he told in a longer or a shorter version, I 
could now — forty years later — repeat portions, so vividly is 
it painted on my recollection. 

" Our neighbors at Green End, though kindly, were 
common place enough : a group of families, with habits, 
ways, and pleasures such as those which Mrs. Gaskell has 
described in her inimitable " Cranford." There was -the 
great house, accessible from ours by a shady little lane, 
banked with wood-sorrel, up which I think I see my mother 
walking dressed for dinner, bare-headed, under a parasol, 
on a hot summer afternoon. There was the parsonage with 



GREEN END. 



23 



its clergyman, a good,, warm-hearted, unselfish creature, as 
kind to us as if we had not been Dissenters (to him) of a 
most unintelligible pattern. There was a family of sisters, 
who had among them some beauty, a little music, universal 
skill in needlework, and one who had once been to London. 
And there was a touchy lady, looked down upon because 
her origin was supposed not to have been sufficiently choice. 
It seems to me, on looking back, as if all these people were 
reasonably happy, in spite of their little humors and ambi- 
tions. Vicissitudes, however, broke out among them, even 
before we quitted that corner of Lancashire • and though 
Green End was a pleasant home, it was no resting-place for 
a widow with three odd boys to educate and start in life. 

" Our removal from Green End was decided by the 
violent illness of my Liverpool uncle, who well-nigh died of 
a typhus fever. That illness decided the current of my life, 
though little could any one guess it at the time. A relation 
or family connection of his, Mrs. Rathbone, of Green Bank, 
daughter of Richard Reynolds, of Bristol, the munificent 
Quaker philanthropist, insisted, according to her wont, on 
his being nursed there during his convalescence ; insisted 
on my mother (who had been summoned from us to be his 
head-nurse) accompanying him ; and, with delicate and con- 
siderate kindness, would have us children all four join her 
there at her country-house, within four miles of Liverpool. 
To myself, that visit was the spark which falls on tinder. 
You may put it out, but not till it has burnt a hole. 

" Hannah Mary Rathbone was a noble and fascinating 
woman ; the most faithful of wives, the most devoted of 
mothers, the most beneficent of friends. In 1819, when I 
stayed at Green Bank, she was in the last ripeness of her 
maturity, looking older than her years, but as beautiful as 
any picture which can be offered by freshest youth. Though 
she was nominally a member of the Society of Friends, she 



24 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 



never conformed to its uniform. Her profuse white hair, 
which had been white from an early age, was cut straight 
like a man's, to lie simply on her forehead. Above this was 
her spotless cap of white net, rescued from meagreness by a 
quilled border and a sort of scarf of the same material round 
it — a head-dress as picturesque, without being queer, as if its 
wearer had studied for years how to arrange it. Her gown 
was always a dark silk, with a quantity of delicate muslin to 
swathe the throat, and a shawl, which covered the stoop of 
her short figure — the shawl never gay, though mostly rich. 
But the face was simply one of the most beautiful faces 
(without regularity) that I have ever seen ; beautiful in spite 
of its being slightly underhung ; the eyes were so deep, 
brilliant, and tender • the tint was so fresh, the expression 
was so noble and so affectionate ; and the voice matched 
the face — so low it was, so kind, so cordial, and (to come 
back to my point) as I fancied, so irresistibly intimate, 
which means appreciating. The welcome of that elderly 
woman to the awkward, scared, nervous child who entered 
her house, is to me one of the recollections which mark a 
life, as having decided its aims, by encouraging its sympa- 
thies. 

" She had been throughout her life the admired friend 
and counsellor of many distinguished men, all belonging to 
the liberal school of ideas and philosophies, which were 
wakened, especially in the world of Dissenters, by the first 
French Revolution. One of so fearless a brain, and so ten- 
derly religious a heart, and so pure a moral sense as she I 
have never known. Her moral courage was indomitable; 
her manners shy, gentle, and caressing. 

' " Since that time, I have been in many luxurious houses; 
but anything like the delicious and elegant comfort of Green 
Bank during her reign I have never known — plenty without 
coarseness ; exquisiteness without that super-delicacy which 



VISIT A T GREEN BANK. 



25 



oppresses by its extravagance. It was a house to which the 
sick went to be nursed, and the benevolent to have their 
plans carried out. It was anything but a hide-bound or 
Puritanical house ; for the library was copious, and novels 
and poems were read aloud in the parlors, and such men as 
William Roscoe, Robert Owen, Sylvester of Derby, Combe 
of Edinburgh, came and went. There was a capital garden; 
there was a double verandah — and if I live to see all the 
glories of sun, moon, and seven stars, I shall never see that 
verandah equalled ; and there was a pianoforte — not like my 
mother's pianoforte at Green End (which Dickens must have 
known, else he could never have described Miss Tox's 
instrument, with the wreath of sweet peas round its maker's 
name, in " Dombey ") — kept under lock and key. There 
were water and a boat ; — but more, there was a touch of the 
true fire from Heaven in the owner of all these delights 
which spoke to me in a way hardly to be described, never to 
be forgotten. In the case of some people, even from child- 
hood upwards, one judges ; with others, one hopes ; with 
others, one believes ; with others, one learns ; with a few, 
one knows ; and those few, as I have said, decide one's life. 

" How that great, and good, and gentle woman ruled her 
family — having been left a widow at middle age — how toned 
them to a standard such as few even try to reach, many, 
very many, living know as well as I. Few have influenced 
so many by their affections, by their reason, by their under- 
standing, so honorably as that retiring, delicate woman; 
and it is a pleasure (not without tears in it) to me to think 
that when we are all no more, some one, untouched by 
family partiality or tradition, shall say this much by way of 
laying a leaf on a modest, but a very holy, grave. 

" The manner in which I played and picked out tunes 
on that small square pianoforte at Green Bank, and began 
to read music long ere I could name a note, connecting the 



26 REMINISCENCES OF CUORLE Y. 

ideas of sound and symbol, strikes me now — who have since 
seen much of the beginnings of musicians — as arguing pro- 
pensity for the art above the average. On the other side 
of the lane, close to Green Bank, was another house, 
inhabited by a lady with five daughters. One of these was 
a pianist ; and she had Handel's Overtures bound in a book 
— pianoforte arrangements, I think, by Mazzinghi — and my 
quick precocity as to music excited her interest. She was 
then a full-grown young lady, while I was only little more 
than a child, but was good-natured enough to send for me 
and to play these to me. Overtures to * Acis,' ' Alcina,' 
* Atalanta' — above all, the royal ' Occasional Overture' (and 
royal it is, with its prelude, and its fanfares, and its march). 
Her playing was not good, and the greatness of Handel was 
in no wise represented by the arrangement ; and yet some- 
how, even from those attempts at transcripts I derived a 
pleasure, an impression of power, and a feeling as if 
something magnificent and true had been shown me 
— the same impression which a child, however incapable 
of reasoning, may derive from Milton's noble versifica- 
tion, or from Shakespeare's divine insights into nature 
— something ignorant, incomplete— irresistible. By such 
curious, broken steps, I have often thought many of the 
English destined really to cultivate art or letters must 
walk upwards. Do academies suit our rude, independent 
natures, our incomplete sympathies — at least in Art ? But 
the kindness of this lady did not fall on altogether ungrate- 
ful soil. It could not make a musician of me, for ' the 
stars' were too inexorably opposed to it ; but it helped to 
awaken in me a desire, which has never wholly died out, in 
my turn to show kindness to those having tastes and ten- 
dencies without means of indulging them. 

" It was at Green Bank, too, that I saw authors and 
poets for the first time. Roscoe had long been the attached 



REMOVAL TO LIVERPOOL. 



2/ 



and intimate friend of Mrs. Rathbone ; more so than ever, as 
far as her constant good offices could prove it, after the failure 
of the Liverpool Bank, in which he had become interested. 
It was the period when Elizabeth Fry's notable efforts to 
amend prison discipline were exciting men's attention. 
He was about some work on the subject, and used perpet- 
ually to come and go, with plans and papers, and letters and 
reports, for comparison and consultation. It was wonderful 
to observe the eagerness with which those two enthusiastic 
people went heart, soul, temper, and passion into the matter, 
under the certainty of large and generous results. 

" Campbell, too, was down at Liverpool that winter, 
giving his lectures on poetry at the Royal Institution. I 
heard much of him, and I could then have repeated by 
heart the best part of ' O'Connor's Child ; ' but I never then 
saw him. I heard, too, of other Scottish celebrities — a good 
deal of the Dugald Stewarts, with whom Mrs. Rathbone had 
intercourse. It was another air I was breathing to any that I 
had ever breathed before. After having breathed it, I was 
never again the same creature that I had been. To those 
who enjoy the advantages now so largely multiplied and 
so widely diffused, the remembrance of ' these inklings of 
education' may seem puerile, perhaps caricatured ; but as I 
belong to the class of those for whom intercourse and occu- 
pation have always done more than lonely study, in whom 
production has quickened thought, rather than thought sug- 
gested production — at once desultory and determined, 
indolent and feverishly active — it may be still curious to 
some of like temperament, under better dispensations, to be 
told how were certain veins opened and certain pursuits set 
a-going. 

" We removed to Liverpool in the year 1819, and we 
three boys were placed at the school of the Royal Institu- 
tion, then headed by the Rev. John Monk, an urbane, 



28 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

good-natured man, and a fair scholar ; but where little, 
virtually, was taught save Latin and Greek — an odd training 
for boys among whom ninety out of the hundred were to 
make their way in commercial life ; but such was the fashion 
of the time. By some favor, I was admitted a year or so 
ere I ought to have been. No favor did it prove to me, so 
far as happiness was concerned ; for, being the smallest, 
most nervous creature in the place, inexpert at every game, 
and shabbily dressed, being also credited with some quick- 
ness, I was a good deal plagued and rudely treated by the 
elder boys, not so much disliked as cruelly teazed, and in 
great difficulties as to the finding a playmate or a comrade. 
To this day of writing, I wake up from a sort of nightmare 
dream that I am going to school, and have not my exercise 
ready. There was a second master there, a Rev. Mr. 
Heathcote, who, I think, liked me. I know I liked to learn 
from him, because he once set me on a stool in the middle of 
the school, to read aloud a theme which had pleased him — 
the only time such a distinction was paid a scholar in his 
room during my stay there. This was a hard business to 
get through, and made me no more popular, of course, than 
I had been among my schoolfellows. I learned Greek with 
greater relish than Latin. The grandeur of the older lan- 
guage and of its poetry excited me, as compared with the 
smoother beauty of the tongue in which Cicero and Virgil 
wrote. To this day, too, I recollect the pleasure I found 
(when I was not idle) in Herodotus and in Euripides, whose 
' Hecuba' I translated from beginning to end, for my own 
pleasure. At the school of the Royal Institution, when I 
first went there, corporeal punishment was forbidden. Tasks 
to be got by heart were a light punishment to me, whose 
memory was then singularly alert and retentive. And, in 
truth, I was learning things not fit for me, nor I for them ; 
and feeling, even then (for so I had been told) that the end 



EARLY MUSICAL PROF ENSITIES. 2 g 

of what I was learning was to be a desk in an American 
merchant's counting-house, I was, in every sense of the 
word — to myself, to my masters, to my school-fellows, and at 
home — a failure: as such, too much taken to task, not 
enough coerced, and groping all the while towards a world 
in which there were neither Greek plays nor Latin orators, 
still less counting-house desks and ledgers. It was a time 
of weariness, and vain longing, and disapprobation, for 
which no one concerned was wholly to blame. With the 
habits, the traditions, and the views of ail around me, there 
was no possibility of my having had the education for the 
art I have always loved the best. In those days, and in 
that place, a musician was hardly a man. 

" But propensity, like murder, 'will out,' let the barriers 
be ever so intricate or unfriendly. There was a small music- 
shop on our way to school ; there was an organ- building 
factory on another way back from it. By this time I had been 
allowed a certain access to the pianoforte at home, pertina- 
city having prevailed ; and the readiness with which I picked 
out and picked up tunes was produced to such visitors as were 
not too severely bound to Quakerism to reject music. My 
uncle, too, had taken at one time an active part in the 
administration of the Blind Asylum, the musical pupils of 
which sang twice in the week — always sacred music— accom- 
panied by an organ. The selection of this was not bad, since 
fragments of Haydn, Mozart, Handel, and Pergolesi were 
included in it, as well as anthems by our later cathedral 
writers ; and countless hymns. But that Blind School was 
my place of delight, and many and many a time have I lagged 
and loitered on my way to my school, to creep in there and 
hear something — certain, that whatever my excuse, I should 
be punished for my truancy. 

" How I got into the music-shop I have not the most 
remote idea ; but it belonged to good-natured people ; and 



30 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE V. 

the daughter of the house had been trained as a mistress of 
the pianoforte, and allowed me to hear her play sometimes 
— the first professionally-trained playing I had heard. In 
those days, ' Der Freischiitz' was new, and Kalkbrenner in 
the ascendant as a composer ; and his variations on the 
' Hunting Chorus ' (where are they now ?) were the things 
which Miss Walker had to get up, in order to teach her 
pupils. Long, too, ere I could have played them, I put 
together and wrote down a set of quadrille-tunes, which I had 
absolutely the assurance to present to these patient folk, 
with the hope of getting published. Their patience seems 
to me wonderful now. 

" But I had more help in another quarter, strange to say, 
for which I was indebted to my uncle the physician, who 
despised music as a profession to such a point that I verily 
think he would rather have seen me a shop-boy than a second 
Mozart ! He was much beloved and trusted by his patients; 
and no wonder, for he was as unselfish as he was sedulous. 
I could recall a hundred stories of his delicacy and disinter- 
estedness : of his returning money when he considered him- 
self over-feed ; of his refusing it from patients in narrow 
circumstances. Hence, the invalids who were in his hands 
for any length of time grew, most of them, to be his attached 
and grateful personal friends ; and some showed their 
attachment and gratitude in paying attention to his younger 
widowed sister and her four queer children. 

" Among these was a woman of some wealth, who had 
married an Irish officier (of the old Bath or fortune-hunting 
species) some years younger than herself. They had four 
children, three of whom became insane, and died early ; and 
in the education of their daughter, they had called in a 
governess from London. She was Italian, or rather Nizzard, 
by birth, belonging to Mentone in Sardinia ; and her father, 
she used to say, had been secretary to M. de Calonne, the 



EARLY ADMIRATION FOR THE ORGAN. 



31 



well-known French minister. How this man, during the 
emigration consequent on the Terror in Paris, could have 
obliged Georgiana, the brilliant Whig Duchess of Devonshire, 
it would be hard to tell. I have surmised (but it is mere 
surmise) that he might have been somehow convenient to 
her in the gambling transactions by which, it has been said, 
she suffered so much ; but certain it is, the political 
beauty paid her debts to the man by giving his daughter a 
first-class education, so as to fit her for earning her livelihood 
as a governess ; and she was thereby installed in a Liverpool 
household. A woman with blue eyes, very black hair, the 
whitest skin I ever saw, and rather deaf; with a suspicious, 
self-defensive temper, but many real affections and sterling 
qualities, and more accomplishments, of a certain sort, than 
I had till then fallen in with. She was a true and solid piano- 
forte player, and (again good-natured) was willing to play for 
me sonatas by Dussek and Clementi, an arrangement of Che- 
rubini's Overture to 'Lodoiska,' and Beethoven's Andante in 
F. for the pianoforte : so many introductions into Faery land. 

" In those days, I would have run miles through the rain 
to look at the outside of an organ. While we were living 
at St. Helens, I had been taken to church once 6r twice, and 
had heard what manner of rich and pompous sounds those 
noble instruments can give forth. Even such comfort and 
decoration as the church at St. Helens showed — seen by 
way of a change and a rarity — had early impressed me. To 
this day I never see an organ-front without that sort of 
expectation with which one gets near a mountain-top from 
which the view is known to be wide, or opens a green -house 
door to get a feast of color and odor. 

" It seems curious, that many persons should have agreed 
to mistake the love of color for a frivolous passion for finery, 
and not have recognised that the eye has its satisfactions as 
complete as those that the ear derives from music or from 



32 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

sweet verse. All my earlier life I sat under the reproach of 
personal coxcombry and vanity, because I was born with a 
love of gay and harmonious tints, and of rich textures, and 
because i have loved to wear them, for their sakes — not for 
mine. I cannot recollect the period or the place at which I 
ever for one instant troubled my mind with the ridiculous 
notion of fascinating others by my fine clothes, or of passing 
off plain and irregular features by showy dressing. It has 
been my fortune, in common with other persons whose occu- 
pation makes them obnoxious, to receive much anonymous 
abuse, and to receive many of those singular counsels which 
careless people, not thinking themselves ill-natured, have as 
singular a pleasure in repeating, to see how the listener 
1 takes them.' I can truly say, that I never, from my boy- 
hood upwards, felt in the slightest degree ruffled or discon- 
certed by what seems to vex other less sensitive people than 
myself. Yet the ruling passion for blue, and rose-color, and 
yellow, worn about me and upon me, broke out from the 
hour when I had a sixpence to call my own ; and I still 
laugh, as I laughed then, at the ridicule showered upon me 
by my mates in Cropper, Benson and Co.'s office, when a 
half-starved tailor, whom I had commissioned to scour Liver- 
pool for me in search of a cherry-colored silk waistcoat, 
presented himself at the cash-keeper's counter of that busy 
establishment with a pattern for Mr. Chorley, which he hoped 
' would do, at last.' 

" So, too, in my fancies for drawing, — and I had till 1 
was a grown man some fancy but no learning ; — it was the 
arabesque — the rich and decorative composition — in which I 
delighted ; the high finish of miniature-painting, the most 
crimson sunsets of landscape. There may have been some- 
thing of very low artistic feeling, or instinct, or sensuality in 
all this — a something linked with tastes and tendencies for 
another art which were of higher quality. I do not believe 



EARL Y PASSION FOR COLOR. 03 

i-n a gift for poetry without some developed or undeveloped 
capacity for painting, music, or vice versa. A musician I 
should have been ; and since the technical training and the 
opportunities of self-culture were denied me by circumstance, 
secondary talents grouped around the central one, which were 
more easily indulged and developed, broke out as it were, to 
satisfy a want which must find some relief. Thus I drew (I 
ought to say, colored) patiently for hours upon hours ; and 
the slowest, most elaborate, most tedious works. I — who 
was the idlest of boys at my books, the most restless of crea- 
tures, living or dead, in what is thought improving company 
— have got up in the middle of the night, to see whether I 
had spoiled the yesterday's work. I rose habitually for 
some years (always a reluctant riser) with daylight, that I 
might pursue my favorite occupation for some hours before I 
betook myself to the abominable school or the detestable 
counting-house ; and there were long extant, acres, I may say, 
of ill-devised, ill-considered essays at color, in fruit, flower, 
landscape pieces, and sometimes heads in miniature, which 
might have told those in care of me that I had industry and 
labor to bestow, and earnest diligence under command and 
control, in the objects and pursuits which really interested 
me. But who thinks of these things with regard to children 
except those who themselves have some sympathy with the 
artist-temperament ? My mother possessed it, but did not 
know it. There were glimpses of it, too, in my father's 
family. But those were days when, in the provinces of Eng- 
land, to get recognition or respect for tastes or fancies of the 
kind I speak of, required more than ordinary courage and 
foresight on the part of parents and guardians. Mine, though 
gifted, were timid, narrowed in fortunes, and full of the Non- 
conformist horror of Art, as a calling, which existed so 
strangely among those who were quick enough to relish art 
as an amusement. 



34 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 



"It seems to me now, in putting together all these reve- 
lations, that had my elders understood the signs before them, 
and apprenticed me to a musical career, I might have done 
England an artist's service. But I hardly know the middle- 
class family in the provinces forty years ago (save, perhaps, 
one so much before its age, as that of the Taylors of Nor- 
wich), where such a disposition of a boy's life would not then 
have been considered as a degradation. How the good 
people of those days resigned themselves to going to theatres 
and music-meetings, I have never been able to understand, 
even on the most comprehensive theory of inconsistency. I 
know that my wings were perpetually breaking against the 
cage, and that unable to get out, as I wished, I had to make 
other outlets for humor, or taste, or talent which would ?iot 
conform to the life chalked out for me. I wanted pleasure, 
sympathy, scope for the fancy ; and I loved and looked up 
to people, in proportion as they could minister these to me. 
No creature in prison was ever more resolute than I was to 
get out. But long and weary was the time ere extrication 
came ; and when it did come, it was only, as it were, along a 
by-road." 



CHAPTER III. 

Enters a Merchant's Office in Liverpool. — Distasteful Employment. — 
'Literary and Artistic Tastes. — Intimacy with Mr. Rathbone, and 
its influence on his life. — Early efforts in Literature. — Society in 
Liverpool. — Mrs. Hemans. — American merchant-captains and their 
wives. — Cultivation of Music and critical taste. — Introduction to 
" Athenaeum." — Opening of Liverpool and Manchester Railway. — 
Letter to Mr. Dilke. — Contributions to " Athenaeum." — Admitted 
to Staff of that Journal. — Arrival in London. — Literary Criticism. 
— Letter to a Friend in Liverpool. — Letter from Mr. Dilke. 

THE unmistakeable indications in young Chorley's 
temperament and habits of an artistic bias which 
should have determined his career, were — perhaps 
inevitably — wholly disregarded by his family ; and at 
an early age, he was taken from school, and assigned 
to a clerkship in the office of Messrs. Cropper, Benson 
and Co., a prosperous firm of American merchants in 
Liverpool. How long he remained there does not 
appear ; but, the occupation not being to his liking, he 
was transferred to a seat in the office of Messrs. 
Woodhouse, Sicilian wine-growers. The result was the 
same. An employment more thoroughly distasteful to 
him than the checking of invoices and casting up of 
ledgers could scarcely have been chosen ; and he 
appears to have performed his duties quite perfunct- 
orily, without any interest but the hope of escape into 
a more congenial atmosphere. To shorten the hours 
of official drudgery as much as possible, and secure 



36 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

every available opportunity of indulging his love of 
Art, especially music, of literature, and society, was 
his constant and increasingly eager aim. In the cul- 
ture and gratification of these tastes he was warmly 
encouraged by the sympathy and assisted by the 
liberality of Mr. Benson Rathbone, the son of the 
lady whose early kindness he has affectionately re- 
corded. The companionship of a man so much older 
than himself, of maturer mind and ampler means, was 
invaluable to Chorley at this crisis of his life. His 
visits to Swansea and Geldeston — where Mr. Rath- 
bone successively resided, and gave his young friend 
opportunities of hearing and practising music — were 
seasons of rare enchantment to him. It is probable, 
too, that his introduction to the Italian Opera in Lon- 
don was made under the same auspices. The cost of 
a journey thither from Liverpool was far too great for 
him to have undertaken it unassisted ; and it seems 
likely that the visits which he speaks of having paid 
there before 1834, were in Mr. Rathbone's company. 
A grateful remembrance of this gentleman's timely 
sympathy remained with Chorley to the close of his 
life; and the shadow cast over his brightening pros- 
pects by his friend's premature death, a few years 
later, was not lightly lifted. The period of their 
friendship, between 1827 and 1834, was that of Chor- 
ley's first literary efforts. Sketches of character and 
manners drawn from his observation of Liverpool 
life; tales, lyrics and hymns; a dramatic poem, of 
which Stradella was the hero ; and sundry criticisms 
on music — of which more will presently be said — 
were the fruit of such moments as could be snatched 



SOCIETY IN LIVERPOOL. 



37 



from the desk. A few of these productions appeared 
in the " Winter's Wreath," the ''Sacred Offering," and 
other of the annual collections of verse and prose then 
popular (to which his mother and sister, and both his 
brothers, were also contributors) ; and a larger number 
in the minor serials; seme of his songs, also, being 
set to music. 

Apart from its association with his detested drudg- 
ery, a great seaport like Liverpool — teeming with 
various and everchanging forms of activity, the residence 
of merchant princes, and the temporary abode of 
strangers attracted thither by diverse motives from all 
parts of the globe — was not an ungenial soil for the 
development of such tastes and ambitions as his. The 
circle of society in which he mixed was more than 
ordinarily cultivated, and frequently received additions 
which gave it fresh color and interest. One of these 
was Mrs. Hemans, who resided in the neighborhood 
of Liverpool for some years, and whose poetic prestige 
and personal influence inspired Chorley with a rever- 
ence of which the traces are apparent, not only in the 
imitative manner of his early verses, but in a pervad- 
ing want of manliness in the fibre of his thought, which 
the stern training of his after-experience was needful 
to supply. Another and very different addition to his 
social circle, but scarcely less welcome from the stimulus 
it afforded to his love of character, was the succession 
of American merchant-captains who were frequent 
guests at the tables to which he was invited. Of this 
type of visitors he has left the following pleasant 
reminiscences : — 



38 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

" I think of them as a fine, hearty, wholesome race of 
seafaring men ; in general breeding and intelligence superior 
to anything analogous of home-growth which Liverpool could 
have produced. They brought an air, sometimes a gale, of 
freshness into a society which, in those days, was restricted, 
and, therefore, given up to struggles and demarcations of 
petty class insolence, happily now over for ever. They had 
strange sea-stories to tell — sometimes with a rich allowance 
of braggadocio — sometimes, in the abundance of that restless- 
ness which is so marking a feature in the national character. 
They brought over their wives to have a good time of it, by 
way of a frolic ; and as a class, jolly, hearty, and original 
these wives were — fond of display — fond of indulgence — 
strange in their speech ; but in no case that I can recollect 
unwomanly, or breaking those innate laws of good breeding 
which do not depend on orthodox speech or minute 
subservience to any code of ceremonies. 

" One of these cheery beings especially lives in my recol- 
lection, who was deservedly made much of in Liverpool, and 
who passed many an evening by our fireside, which her 
presence brightened. She dressed richly. I see as clearly 
as if nearly half a century had not passed, a certain orange 
robe of Canton crape, and the gold chain across her fore- 
head, ornamented in the centre, as was the fashion then, by 
a feronniere. Those who have seen the sadly speaking 
portrait of Malibran will know what I mean. That was a 
mere jewel-drop, worn, as I have seen an orange-flower bud 
in Spain, so as just to hang beneath the parting of the hair. 
But, whereas other ladies indulged in blossoms or pendants, 

dear Mrs. had bethought herself of a small French 

watch, the hands of which went round, and which ticked 
in an excruciating manner." 

Most attractive to him of all the advantages of 



HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF PASTA. 



39 



Liverpool life were the means which it afforded for the 
gratification of his thirst for music. The " first public 
music of any kind " which he heard was, as he notes in 
his journal, at the Liverpool Festival of 1827. This 
introduced him to Mozart's " Jupiter Symphony," 
from which, although " at that time far from being 
able to receive anything more than a vague impression 
of delight," he derived such an impression as 
" amounted to ecstasy." Here, too, he heard Pasta, 
of whom his critical estimate, as the earliest of a life- 
long series, may be worth quoting. " The first tones 
of her voice quite shocked me ; there was a coarse 
huskiness about them which made wild work with my 
preconceived ideas of nightingale sweetness and the 
other fantasies of an uneducated brain about singers ; 
but the song was ' Ombra Adorata,' * and though I 
have heard many good and inspired things since, her 
reading of that melody stands out distinct from any- 
thing I have ever heard ; the perfection of passion 
controlled by dignity, of high resolve sustained by 
higher hope. It has left an impression of majesty and 
first-rate talent which I cannot fancy any new pleasure 
will efface." The same journal recounts his first atten- 
dance at a stage representation, and hearing of Italian 
opera — the piece being Rossini's " II Turco in Italia," 
which was given by a company that visited Liverpool 
for a short season, with " Spagnoletti for leader ; Fan- 
ny Ay ton, prima donna ; Curioni, tenor ; Giubilei and 
De Begnis, serio and buffo basses ; '' A visit which was 
paid to Liverpool, in 1832, by Donizelli, then among 
the first of Italian tenors, further enlarged Chorley's 
* From the " Romeo " of Zingarelli. 



40 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE Y. 



experience both of operatic and sacred music ; and he 
dilates in his journal, with boyish enthusiasm, on the 
rapture with which he had listened. " I would go a 
mile to hear Donizelli sing his scales. It is the only 
voice I ever heard wherein extreme power existed 
without a shadow of strain or shout ; . . . and there is 
appertaining to and beyond these mere animal gifts, a 
soul, a nice delicacy of taste, a quiet sobriety in the 
choice of ornament, a regulated passion (how far 
stronger than the false frenzy of many artists ! ) which 
heightens the impression his voice produces to the 
extremest point of pleasure." 

During 1832 and 1833, a succession of musical and 
dramatic treats — hearings of Beethoven's " Fidelio," 
Rossini's "Otello," Mozart's " Nozze," Handel's "Is- 
rael " and " Messiah," Haydn's " Creation " and " 2nd 
Mass," Mozart's "Requiem" and " 12th Credo," and 
Spohr's " Last Judgment," — of Schroeder-Devrient, 
and Malibran — gave a fresh stimulus to Chorley's 
growing faculty of discernment. The accounts in his 
journal of each representation that he attended became 
less rhapsodical and more discriminative. He was 
evidently feeling his way to a definite vocation. 

The suggestion which led to his obtaining such an 
opportunity as he desired, Chorley owed to the elder 
Miss Jewsbury (afterwards Mrs, Fletcher), in her time 
a popular authoress, with whom he had become 
acquainted in Liverpool. She was an early contributor 
to the " Athenaeum," then rising in public estimation 
under the vigorous management of Charles Wentworth 
Dilke, as a formidable rival to the " Literary Gazette," 
which, under the sway of Jerdan, had long wielded 






LETTER TO MR. DILKE. 



41 



a stern despotism over current literature and art. 
At her instance it would seem that, in 'September 
1830, Mr. Dilke applied to Chorley, as a young 
Liverpool penman, for an account of the ceremony 
that was to inaugurate the new railway between that 
town and Manchester. The accident which caused the 
death of the eminent statesman, Huskisson, imparted 
a tragic interest to an event which would otherwise 
have been solely memorable in the unemotional annals 
of Science, and Chorley felt that no worthy narrative 
of the occasion could omit to call attention to its two- 
fold significance. But he found himself unable to do 
justice to the subject in its scientific aspect, and was 
candid enough to say so. Under date of September 
22nd, 1830, he thus wrote to Mr. Dilke: — 

"Dear Sir:— 

" I received your very obliging letter of the 18th and 
the * Athenseum ' for Sunday last upon Monday morning. I 
have delayed answering it till to-day, because I was anxious, if 
possible, to prove to you that I meant what I said when I 
offered you my services, and to have sent you such an article 
as you wished. But after one or two ineffectual efforts I be- 
came convinced anew, of what past experience might have 
taught me, that I am incapable of writing anything scientific, 
and that I could do little but extract from Encyclopaedias, 
etc. In fact, the trifle you receive with this (of which I beg 
your acceptance, though it is rather like giving a stone for a 
fish), may show you that I have lived more among the 
romance than the reality of literature. What I purposed to 
have sent you would have been a light sketch of the pro- 
ceedings of the day, with perhaps a grain of information 
among a mass of nonsense — ' a halfpenny worth of bread to 



42 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE Y. 



an intolerable quantity of sack.' It may seem ridiculous, 
and I fear disobliging, to have troubled you, and after all to 
be of no use ; but I have seen and laughed at so much 
grave folly perpetrated by those who have been unwise 
enough to forsake their own peculiar line, that I have made 
a kind of resolution never to put on the lion's skin, for fear 
lest my asses' ears should be too long to be hidden. If I 
can at any time serve you with lighter contributions of prose 
or verse, I shall be most happy ; or if you should at any 
time like to have any musical papers, I think I could under- 
take to promise you my best efforts, as I love the art dearly, 
and have spent much time in its cultivation. I ought to 
apologise for having intruded upon your time so long, but I 
was anxious that you should understand me thoroughly, in 
case you should be disposed to avail yourself of my services 
on any future occasion. In the meantime, I remain, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" Henry F. Chorley." 
" 14, St. Anne Street." 

Mr. Dilke appears to have appreciated this candor, 
and sent a favorable answer; whereupon Chorley for- 
warded several lyrics, and one or two musical criti- 
cisms, which were duly inserted. His earliest critical 
effort, according to his recollection, " was an account 
of the quaint Musical Festival in Dublin, when 
Paganini was compelled to mount on the case of the 
grand pianoforte, and exhibit his gaunt face and spec- 
tral proportions while he played." 

The acceptance of these contributions decided 
Chorley's career. Towards the close of 1833, by the 
intervention of a Quaker acquaintance, Mr. Pringle, 
the African traveller, he applied to Mr. Dilke for ad 



LETTER FROM MR. DILKE. 



43 



mission on the staff of the journal, expressing himself 
willing to accept a salary commencing at 80/. a year. 
The conditions of assent prescribed in Mr. Dilke's 
straightforward answer were severe enough to have 
daunted an ordinary aspirant. 

" I would consent to take my chance," he wrote, " of 
your being more or less useful to me, and would give you 
50/. for six months' services. This would enable you to take 
up a position here, and at least to maintain you, according 
to your own estimate, while you waited on fortune, and 
further and better employment. In return, I should require 
you to live in my immediate neighborhood ; and to give me 
your assistance in any and every way I might suggest. It 
may, indeed, be presumed that I mean to shift from my 
shoulders to yours as much of the drudgery as possible, being 
heartily weary of it. I cannot say how much of your time I 
should require, because that would depend on your facility 
and despatch. I am, however, of opinion that at least one 
whole day a week would be at your disposal, and perhaps 
some hours of one or two other days. Nor would your occu- 
pation be always disagreeable ; but as much of it would be 
to rewrite papers — a wearisome business, as I know — I 
think it better to declare at once that it will be generally 
drudgery. n 

Chorley responded to this offer by accepting it 
"with pleasure and without hesitation." 

" I was resolved," he says in a fragment of autobio- 
graphy, " to be delivered from Liverpool, where no occupa- 
tion presented itself, save such as I detested, and the duties 
of which I fulfilled as imperfectly as possible. The remu- 
neration offered to a person so untried was naturally very 



44 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

small. The idea, I suspect, was to entrust me with nothing 
of consequence or involving responsibility ; but I would 
have taken service on any terms to escape from the intolerable 
drudgery of a merchant's office. I concealed the conditions 
of my engagement from my family, aware that they had no con- 
fidence in my stability of purpose. It was believed by them 
that I should return home, after a time of failure, in debt. 
The parting, when it came, was less bitter to my kith and kin 
than to myself, because of this apprehension on their part. 

" I left Liverpool on the last day of the year 1833, going 
via Manchester, and thence outside a coach, which, it seems 
now inconceivable, was six-and-twenty hours on the road. 
The weather was of the very worst winter kind ; the horses 
could hardly make head against a storm of wind, which, as 
we passed through Derbyshire, blew over a worse-appointed 
stage-coach before us. It snowed heavily, and my hat was 
blown off. The bitter cold at dawn of that New Year's day 
is a thing never to be forgotten ; and when I arrived at my 
destination (Mr. Dilke having kindly invited me to his house 
till I could establish myself), I was numb, stupid, hardly 
able to speak, to think, or to move. I have been told, that 
early in the evening I was found fast asleep, having fallen 
out of the fire-side chair, where the most warm-hearted of 
hostesses had kindly placed me, with my head in the coal- 
scuttle. I feel — even at this distance of time — my state of 
intense and shabby misery, of ache, and pain, and exhaus- 
tion, when I woke. But it was something to begin a man's 
life in London, and during the early months of my probation 
(some of which were anything but light ones, involving the 
most; rigorous economy) I never, for an instant, repented 
the step I had taken, which even the most indulgent of my 
friends — to whose kindness and trust in me I was largely 
indebted — felt and feared was rash, one not improbably 
involving ruin for life. 



LETTER TO MRS. RATHBONE. 45 

" Matters were not mended by my intense and awkward 
shyness. It was well that my employers, and a correspon- 
dent or two, had received a not unfavorable idea of. me from 
the few slight contributions to annuals and magazines which 
I had published. By those among whom I was thrown by 
chance — a coterie, not devoid of coterie self-conceit, and 
sharply intolerant — I was viewed with little favor ; and when 
it appeared that I was about to stand my ground, I was not 
kindly treated as an interloper." 

A letter which he wrote, three months after his 
arrival in London, to Mrs. Richard Rathbone, one of 
his oldest friends in Liverpool, sums up the general 
result of his experience thus far. 

" 5, Stafford Row, Pimlico, 
" April 15, 1834. 

" My dear Friend : — 

" I was much obliged by your kind note, which reached 
me on Monday along with the week's parcel. I should, 
indeed, have written long ago, but you judge only rightly 
in concluding my engagements many ; and were I not per- 
force thrown off my work by a man who is tuning my piano, 
I should not have had time to have answered yours before 
Saturday, that being my holiday, which, however, I have 
been too busy to claim for many a week. I am rather indis- 
posed to desk-work, as you may suppose ; and I thought 
you would hear of me by Mrs. R., to whom I write as my 
first friend in the family, save your mother, to whom only I 
do not write because she must have letters enough to read 
without mine. 

" It is a strange, confused, bustling life I am living, and 
were I much in society, I think I should go crazy ; but I do 
not go out much beyond </«#/- visiting yet, nor, in fact, have I 



46 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

time, as I am rarely done before ten o'clock at night, and 
never if I take up any of my own private matters. But it is 
(as I expected) a life of great interest, and I feel I am of 
use, and filling my place creditably, which I never felt before ; 
so that I am very happy, though it would have been hard to 
make some folks believe that I could be so, living as much 
alone as I do, and so constantly employed. My occupation, 
too, is all indoors work, and I never go abroad, save to see 
something officially, or on a constitutional walk. My chief 
recreation is the opera and evening concerts. Private music 
I hear none, and I think shall be almost entirely compelled 
to give up my own share of it, as I am not at the piano half 
an hour a day. My connection with the ' Athenaeum ' 
continues all I could possibly wish in every respect. Had I 
sought all the world over, I could not have found a situation 
more to my mind. My book is rapidly going through the 
press, . . . and I have every prospect of an arrangement 
for another, when I have time to write it. My ' Seaport 
Town' will be out about the middle of June, I believe. . . . 
I have seen abundance of the lions of literatuie here, and 
my respect for them has by no means increased. . . . The 
Proctors, however I like much. ... I think Hood, perhaps 
the most taking lion I have seen, perhaps because he does 
not try to take, and his wit comes out really because it 
cannot stop in, there is so much behind. ... I met Mr. 
Atherstone # (for the first time) on Sunday evening, who 
contradicted everything that six people said as fast as they 
could say it ; but he says he is starving for his health, and 
that I know, by lean experience, is enough to make any one 
cross, let alone a poet. . . . You have no taste for spectacle, 
or I would tell you that the Opera is more magnificent than 
ever, and a certain Mademoiselle Grisi the best of best 
singers. . . . Will you give my dear love to your mother ? I 
* The then famous author of the " Fall of Nineveh." 



ANOTHER LETTER FROM MR. DILKE. 



47 



think of her often, and always with affection and gratitude. I 
am sure she will rejoice with me at such an apparently prosper- 
ous termination of long indecision and unsettlement. . . . 
My love to all the children. I hope you hear pleasant 
tidings of H. M. Believe me to be yours faithfully, 

" Henry F. Chorley." 



" The satisfaction thus expressed with his employ- 
ment was reciprocated by his employer, as appears 
from the following letter, addressed to him by Mr. 
Dilke, on the termination of their six months' 
engagement : — 



" ist July, 1834. 
"My Dear Sir:— 

"It has just struck me to ask you how our accounts 
stand? I think you have bad 40/. ; but, unfortunately, my 
son does not appear to have made any entry of the last 
amount paid. On this supposition, I enclose a draft for 14/. ; 
4/. being added for articles on Dublin Musical Festival, etc. 
. . . And now a word about the future, of which I ought, 
perhaps, to have spoken before, but that I am not an 
observer of dates, until quarter-days knocks at the door with 
all amiable remembrances. I think I may be brief on this 
subject. I am very well satisfied with your zeal and ability 
to serve the paper, especially when thoroughly broken into 
harness ; and I don't think you find much to object to in 
your position. What say you, then, if I give you 65/. for the 
next six months, it being understood between us, as heretofore, 
that I mean to thrust all the drudgery on you that I can, ac- 
cording to conscience ? This may be a little more than it has 
been, but principally in sight-seeing, as I have upon occasion 



48 REMINISCENCES OF C II OR LEY. 

intimated ; but, in fact, you know now what it is likely to be, 
as well as I do. 

" I am, my dear Sir, 

" Yours very truly, 

" C. W. Dilke." 

" I send half a dozen volumes for L. T. [' Library 
Table '], this or next week, as may suit." 

The arrangement proposed was frankly accepted 
by Chorley in his reply ; and afterward his life was 
divided pretty equally between the claims of literature 
and art, what was left being absorbed by those of 
friendship and society. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Literary Life in London from 1834 to 1841. — Connection with the 
" Athenaeum." — Antagonism of " Literary Gazette." — Jerdan and 
Miss Landon.— -Staff of the " Athenaeum." — George Darley and Tal- 
fourd's " Ion." — Attacks upon Chorley as a Critic. — Letters of G. 
P. R. James and Thackeray. — Publication of " Sketches of a Sea- 
port Town " and " Conti." — Entrusted with Preparations of 
" Memorials of Mrs. Hemans." — Letter to a Friend in Liverpool 
upon the Subject. Publication and Reception of the Work. — 
Writes a Drama. — Contributions to Boudoir Literature. — Songs — 
Self-culture in Literature and Art. — Criticisms on Forrest in " Lear," 
and the " La Valliere " of Lord Lytton. — " Lady of Lyons," Attrib- 
uted to him. — Publishes " The Authors of England." — Anonymous 
Publication of " The Lion." — Its Reception. 

CHORLEY'S connection with the "Athenaeum" 
continued unbroken till a few years before his 
death and formed, in fact, his only permanent occupa- 
tion. Looking back upon it toward the close of his 
life he says in his journal : — 

"This prolonged period of service was accepted and 
accomplished without a single angry word or failure of obli- 
gation on either side. I believe the secret of this to have 
been in the respect for punctuality maintained by both con- 
tracting parties. This, in the large sense of the word, implies 
honesty of speech, when speech is necessary, and integrity in 
dealing. It does not include agreement in opinion, still less 
a subservience beyond the obligations which regulate the 
position of superior and subordinate. No two persons could 
3 



50 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



be more unlike in many matters of taste, opinion, and feeling 
than the editor of the ' Athenaeum,' the late honored Charles 
Dilke, and myself. But it was impossible to know and not 
respect him, however so many were his prejudices (and they 
were many), however so limited were his sympathies (and 
they were limited). That he had a similar feeling in regard 
to myself, I have reason to believe." 

The cheerful and healthy tone of this reminiscence 
must be set off against many expressions of a more 
gloomy cast which follow. The relation subsisting 
between himself and Mr. Dilke, as their correspon- 
dence attests, was one of the most cordial intimacy ; 
and Chorley repeatedly expressed, in no stinted terms, 
his grateful sense of the kindness shown to him. The 
couleur de rose impression of a literary life, however, 
which pervades the foregoing letter to his friend in 
Liverpool, was, of course, merely transient. Though 
the ' sweets and sours,' were tolerably well mixed in 
his career as a whole, there would certainly seem to 
have been an undue proportion of the latter in the sec- 
tion of it which was devoted to literature. For some 
of his failures as an author there were reasons proper 
to himself and his themes, which sufficiently exon- 
erated his readers from blame. The hostility excited 
by his criticism, on the other hand, was caused by the 
earnestness with which from the first he set his face 
against the petty cliques which controlled the current 
literary and critical journals ; but the hostility was 
none the less bitter because he was in the right. In 
his Journal of that period, he says ;— 



JERDAN AND MISS LANDON. 5 ! 

" At the time when I joined the ' Athenaeum,' its vigor 
and value to the world of letters were not acknowledged as 
they have since been. The ' Literary Gazette,' conducted by 
Mr. Jerdan, who was the puppet of certain booksellers, and 
dispensed praise or blame at their bidding, and it may be 
feared ' for a consideration,' was in the ascendancy ; and its 
conductors and writers spared no pains to attack, to vili- 
pend, and to injure, so far as they could, any one who had 
to do with a rising journal so merciless in its exposure of a 
false and demoralising system. 

" It would not be easy to sum up the iniquities of criti- 
cism (the word is not too strong), perpetrated at the instance 
of publishers, by a young writer and a woman, who was in 
the grasp of Mr. Jerdan, and who gilt or blackened all 
writers of the time, as he ordained. When I came to Lon- 
don to join the ' Athenaeum,' she ' was flinging about fire' as 
a journalist in sport, according to the approved fashion of 
her school, and not a small quantity of the fire fell on the 
head of one who belonged to ' the opposition' camp, like 
myself. It is hard to conceive any one, by flimsiness and 
by flippancy, made more distasteful to those who did not 
know her, than was Miss Landon. 

" For years, the amount of gibing sarcasm and imputa- 
tion to which I was exposed, was largely swelled by this 
poor woman's commanded spite. That it did not make me 
seriously unhappy was probably an affair of temperament ; 
those who would have been pained by it were, happily, 
beyond reach of hearing. But that these things most 
assuredly had a bad influence on my power as a worker, I 
do not entertain the slightest doubt. Perhaps it is only the 
lingering vanity of an elderly man which I mistake for 
conviction." * 

* That the touch of rancor which may be thought perceptible in this 
notice of Miss Landon did not permanently affect Chorley's estimate of 



52 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE V. 



To some extent the obloquy which attached to 
him in certain quarters, on account of his connection 
with the "Athenaeum," was reflected, being directly 
attributable to the doings of his colleagues, for 
whom he was a scapegoat. An instance in point is fur- 
nished in the following sketch of the staff of which 
he was a member : — 

" At that time (1834) the * Athenaeum' was largely sup- 
ported, in point of contributions, by many of Mr. Dilke's 
former comrades in ' The London Magazine.' Charles 
Lamb gave the journal some of his last and not least racy 
fragments. Hood, too, when he could be prevailed on to 
cast off the habits of procrastination which had so disturb- 
ing an effect on his fortunes, lent a hand from time to time ; 
and some of his whimsical criticisms are not even to be 
surpassed by the best comicalities in his ' Whims and Oddi- 
ties.' It must be an increasing object of regret to all who 
love that which is original or powerful in imaginative prose 
and verse, that Hood gave such small time and labor to the 
public. Though he used to profess that he could not control 
his demon, as an excuse for his indolence, a time always 
arrived when it became a matter of life and death, of daily 
and nightly toil, to hurry through the work, long contracted 
and largely paid for in advance. For years this amounted 
to nothing beyond the small annual volume of comic and 
grotesque fancies. 

" Then, too, the ' Athenaeum' was from time to time en- 
riched by Barry Cornwall's gem-like and musical verses, and 
by the brilliant, yet not always refined, criticisms of Hood's 
brother-in-law and partner in the ' Odes and Addresses to 

her, nor steel his kindly nature against her subsequent misfortunes, will 
be apparent from a later notice. 



MISS PA TON AND GEORGE DARLE Y. 



53 



Great people,' John Hamilton Reynolds.* On another man 
of yet greater power and peculiarity, who belonged to the 
same set, abused as cockney by the immaculate Tory critics 
of Edinburgh, I must dwell more in detail : this was George 
Darley, one of the most original human beings whom I have 
ever known, and who cannot be forgotten by any of the few 
who had the opportunity, which chance gave me, of study- 
ing so gifted yet so eccentric, a man near at hand. 

" Many years ago, when Miss Paton, the singer, was in 
her prime — dividing honors as a first-class English singer 
with Miss Stephens — she used to make one of her great 
effects in a ballad,' I've been roaming,' set to ballad music 
by Horn — one of those delicious and refined English tune- 
composers to whom the time present offers no equivalent. 
The words, odd, fantastic, and full of suggestion, were by 
Darley, from a curious pastoral, ' Sylvia, or the May Queen,' 
a sort of half fairy, half-sylvan masque, almost as charming, 
and quite as little intelligible, as a certain tale, ' Phantasmion,' 
published some years ago, and attributed to the gifted Sara 
Coleridge, which, possibly, ten persons besides myself have 
read. 

" At the time when my connection with the ' Athenaeum' 
began, this strange, reserved being, who conceived himself 
largely shut out from companionship with his brother poets, 
by a terrible impediment of speech, was wandering in Italy, 
and sending home to the journal in question a series of letters 
on Art, written in a forced and affected style, but pregnant 

: " Few, save perhaps surviving members of the Garrick Club, will 
be found who recollect the name of this writer. Yet it was brought 
before the world by no meaner a judge than Lord Byron, who praised 
his ' Safie ; ' and there is hardly an anthology devoted to verse of this 
century which does not include that deliciously musical lyric — 

' Go where the water glideth gently ever,' 

than which our Laureate himself has produced nothing more melodious." 



54 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

with research, unborrowed speculation, excellent touches by 
which the nature of a work and of its maker are character- 
ized. The taste in composition, the general severity of the 
judgments pronounced, might be questioned • but no one 
could read them without being stirred to compare and to 
think. In particular, he laid stress on the elder painters, 
whose day had not yet come for England, on Giotto, on 
Perugino, on Francesco Francia, and on Leonardo da Vinci. 
To myself, as to a then untravelled man, the value of these 
letters was great indeed. 

" On the return of Darley to London he took up in the 
1 Athenaeum' the position of dramatic reviewer — not critic 
to the hour — in the most truculent and uncompromising 
fashion conceivable. When Talfourd's ' Ion' was published, 
it appeared to myself (as it still appears) to be the most 
noble, highly-finished, and picturesque modern classical 
tragedy existing on the English stage. It was not its large 
private distribution, not merely the great reputation of its 
author, but the vital, pathetic excellence of the drama, and 
the rich poetry of the diction, which on the night of the pro- 
duction of the play at Covent Garden, filled that great 
theatre with an audience the like of which, in point of dis- 
tinction, I have never seen in any English theatre. There 
were the flower of our poets, the best of our lawyers, artists 
of every world and every quality. There was a poor actor 
of some enterprise and promise, Mr. Cathcart,* who in the 
fullness of zeal and expectation, absolutely walked up to 
London from Brighton,' to be present at the first performance. 

" The success of this was superb, and established its 
author once for all among the real dramatists of England, 
^nd yet it was a success under disadvantages. With all his 
passion and poetry of execution, and subtlety of conception, 
* " He subsequently appeared in London as the ' Cromwell' in Miss 
Mitford's ' Charles the First.' " 






TALFOURD'S ION. 



55 



no magic could make Mr. Macready thoroughly acceptable 
as the young hero. The part was afterwards again and 
again tried by actresses in male attire — always a disappoint- 
ing, when it is not a repulsive, expedient. One could not 
escape from the tones and attitudes of Werner, and Virginius, 
and Macbeth. ' Ion ' has yet to be seen. Nor did the 
charming ' Clemanthe ' of Miss Ellen Tree group well with 
the hero. The other persons of the play were either weakly 
or boisterously presented. There had been no particular 
pains bestowed on scenery or appointments. But of the 
entire, unquestionable triumph of the tragedy, there could 
not be an instant's doubt on the part of any unprejudiced 
spectator. I have rarely been so warmed, so moved in any 
theatre. 

I had met the author at Lady Blessington's ; and she — in 
no respect more generously constant to her friends till the very 
last than in trying to serve younger artists and men of letters 
in whom she fancied promise — presented me to the orator 
and the dramatist of that one great play— -it may be (for this 
I cannot say), as a writer in connection with a rising journal. 
I have since thought that such must have been the case, 
without false thought or purpose on her part, but in her wish 
to set me out to the best advantage. As matters turned out, 
her genuine regard and desire to present me resulted in no 
good influence on my fortunes, literary or critical, but 
absolutely the reverse. 

" An ill chance for me threw the critic's task, as regarded 
the { Athenaeum,' into the hands of Darley — hands never 
more vigorous than when they were using the axe and scalpel. 
That the grace of propriety was utterly wanting to him, his 
own dramas, 'Thomas a Becket' and ' Athelstan ' attest. 

" I was only known to Mr. Talfourd as one who wrote in 
the ' Athenaeum ' and having in person expressed to him what 
I thought and felt in regard to the play, it was necessary for 



56 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

me at once, with the utmost earnestness, to write to him on 
the appearance of the criticism against which I had privately 
protested, but in vain, with the strongest possible disclaimer 
of its unjust and uncouth severity, and an equally strong 
assertion of my own utter powerlessness to interfere in sup- 
pression or mitigation. My letter, I fear, was not believed 
to be sincere. It was said that, had I been in earnest, I 
could easily have attested my sincerity, by entire withdrawal 
from a publication so wicked and malignant — a stringent 
suggestion, truly ! But few have admitted the right of private 
judgment so grudgingly as the most advanced Liberals ; few 
have been so despotic in their partisanship. The damage 
done me by that article was inconceivable. Not only did it 
cost me the good understanding of the poet himself, but, for 
years, I was set up as a mark to be decried by all the coterie 
around him. Whenever I attempted any appearance in print, 
I had such a phrase as this sent to me in a newspaper-cutting 
(lest I should fail to see it) : the writer spoke of ' the Chorleys 
and chawbacons of literature.' Not merely were such coarse 
personalities sent to me, but they were righteously forwarded 
to my family at Liverpool, some of whom they succeeded in 
troubling greatly. I can truly say that they only disturbed 
me inasmuch as they placed hard material obstacles in the 
way of my maintaining myself as a literary man. 

" Some of the specimens of abuse with which I was 
favored were diverting, rather than offensive, by their utter 
vulgarity. I kept by me, for some years, a collection of such 
flowers of rhetoric, the most exquisite of which was a letter 
written in very black ink, beginning, 

"You Worm!! 7" 

" That this prevailing and explicable antipathy was a 
serious injury to me, whenever I attempted appearance before 



LETTER FROM G. P. R. JAMES. 57 

the public is beyond doubt. To some degree one may live 
it down ; but there are many who to the last of an author's 
career will revert to it, and their judgments be influenced 
accordingly, in obedience to the popular adage that ' where 
there is smoke, there must be fire.' " 

" I cannot call to mind a writer more largely neglected, 
sneered at, and grudgingly analyzed than myself. I can 
truly say, however, that seriously as this most unnatural treat- 
ment was a hindrance, whether to the securing that ease of 
spirit which ought to accompany composition, or in maintain- 
ing a modest position as regards gain without an incessant 
and anxious struggle, I have suffered all my life singularly 
little from bitterness under severe criticism on what I have 
written. I do not remember, in this relation between myself 
and my fellow men, to have ever felt resentment, still less a 
desire to retaliate. I deserve no credit for this patience or 
indifference, as may be. It was, in great part, a case of 
temperament ; in small part, of resolution to go on without 
looking to the right or left, or listening to the ' black stones' 
of the Arabian tale, which mocked and tried to affright the 
pilgrim as he struggled up the steep hill ; nor should I have 
stated the case, save for the assistance of those who may 
come after me. Let them count the cost of the struggle 
before they begin ; and once having begun, keep their minds 
as clear as they can of comparison and irritation." 

Happily he now and then received other testi- 
mony of a different quality. The following letter from 
G. P. R. James (a novelist and historian, perhaps now 
too little remembered) will be interesting as a disclo- 
sure of the writer's literary aims, and his appreciation 
of the service which Chorley was rendering to his 
craft : — 

3* 



58 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

" The Cottage, Great Marlow, Bucks. 
" ioth October, 1836. 
" My Dear Sir :— 

" The review of the ' Desultory Man ' in the last ' Athe- 
naeum ' is yours. I recognize your hand ; I recognize your 
taste and high feeling ; and, without wishing you to acknow- 
ledge or deny the article, I thank you for it, not because it 
is laudatory of my book, but because it seizes in a moment, 
justly and powerfully, one of the greatest objects which I 
have always had in my literary career, and puts it forth to the 
public in a way calculated to work a most beneficial change 
in our literature. That object has been to show that fiction, 
without being dry and tedious, may be rendered serviceable 
to every noble principle ; may be taught to convey every 
generous lesson ; and, by interesting our good feelings instead 
of our bad feelings, gain over imagination to the side of virtue, 
and, without crushing our passions, direct them aright. I 
thank you most sincerely for having seized and explained 
my purpose. It was not for me to school my fellow-authors ; 
and, therefore, I have in none of my works put forth either 
an intimation of my own views or a reproach to others ; but 
you have had an opportunity of reading a lesson, which you 
have done powerfully as well as gracefully, and I trust, and 
am sure, you will follow it up by others. . Let you and I but 
labor in this cause, and we will force our brethren of the 
literary world to follow us. I could not resist my inclination 
to express these feelings, but will no longer trespass upon 
your valuable time than to assure you that I am 

" Yours most sincerely, 

" G. P. R. James." 



A few years later, his favorable review of one of 
Thackeray's early works — the " Paris Sketch-book " — 



LETTER FROM THACKERAY. 



59 



brought him the following characteristic acknowledg- 
ment : — 

" 13, Great Coram St., Brunswick Sq., 
1 8th July, 1840. 
" My dear Chorley :— - 

" Name anything you wish as a proof of my gratitude, 
and I will do it for you. Never was such a good-natured 
puff as that in the ' Athenaeum ' of ' Titmarsh.' 

" My best respects to Washington.* I called at the 
Privy Council to see him t'other day ; but they told me that 
Guizot had just stepped out. 

" Your faithful and obliged, 

"Michael Angelo T." 

A critic might esteem himself fortunate who could 
establish so good an understanding between himself 
and the authors he was called upon to dissect. Such 
tokens of it, however, were as yet quite exceptional in 
Chorley's experience ; nor did he obtain much en- 
couragement from the reception of his early attempts 
in the reversed position of an author among critics. 

He brought up with him to London, in 1834, a 
volume of sketches and tales, chiefly drawn from ob- 
servation of Liverpool life, which were published by 
Mr. Bentley, at his own risk, in that year, with 
the author's name, under the title of " Sketches of a 
Seaport Town." They were affectionately dedicated, 
as a first work, to his uncle, Dr. Rutter, whom he calls 
his " second father." Only a cursory reading is 

* A playful reference to Mr. Henry Reeve, with whom Chorley was 
then living, and who had just published a translation of M. Guizot's 
Essay on Washington. 



60 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

required to see that these sketches are very slight in 
form and substance ; occasionally fanciful, but for the 
most part flimsily romantic and sensational, indicating 
no knowledge of the world and merely a superficial 
study of character. The reference made to Mrs. 
Hemans, in the sketch entitled " Birds of Passage," is 
reverential ; and the verses scattered throughout the 
book are plainly modelled upon her manner. The 
style, whether of prose or verse, is diffuse, but clear; 
certain turns of phrase being apparent which were 
retained almost to the last. Though avowedly drawn 
from personal observation, these sketches are wholly 
free from personalities, and were intended, as the pre- 
face states, for publication in the place of their com- 
position. The book was kindly noticed by the 
* Athenaeum,' but met with no more success than so 
boyish a production deserved. 

It was followed, in 1835, by the publication of 
" Conti, the Discarded ; with other Tales and Fancies 
in Music," for the copyright of which Messrs. Saunders 
and Otley, on the recommendation of Lady Blessing- 
ton, gave him £100. The chief tale, " Conti," is a 
romantic narrative of the fortunes of the unacknowl- 
edged son of a wealthy baronet, a musical genius, who, 
by dint of a persevering application to his art, carves 
his way to fame and fortune, but becoming entangled 
in a hopeless passion for a lady of rank, is sacrificed 
to the exigencies of her caste, and suffers himself to 
drift away into temporary ruin and madness. The 
preface states that it was long a favorite fancy of the 
author's " to attempt something in the style of the 
German Kunst-romanen (art-novels), with such modifi- 






" COJVTI, THE DISCARDED." 6 1 

cations as might seem called for by the peculiar spirit 
of our national tastes and literature." This purpose 
was reluctantly abandoned, as incompatible with the 
scope of fiction, and thus the " fancies," which were 
intended to occupy a larger space in the book, dwindled 
to a few leaves ; but the original aim was still kept in 
view. " I have long looked," he says, in the preface, 
" with painful interest on the unreckoned-up account 
of misunderstanding and suspicion which exist be- 
tween the world and the artist. I have grieved when 
I have seen the former disposed to degrade Art into 
a mere plaything, to be enjoyed without respect and 
then cast aside, instead of receiving her high works 
as among the most humanising blessings ever vouch- 
safed to man by a beneficent Creator. I have suffered 
shame as often as I have observed the artist bring his 
own calling into contempt, by coarsely regarding it as 
a mere engine of money-getting, or holding it up to 
reproach by making it the excuse for such eccentrici- 
ties or gross errors as separate him from the rest of 
society." The following stories, he proceeds, were 
written in the hope of " awakening some sympathy 
and respect for that art which, by a singular anomaly, 
is held in the lightest esteem among us, while, at the 
same time, it is more universally preferred than either 
poetry or painting." 

Worthy as was the design, the execution scarcely 
came up to its height, and the book seems to have 
failed, in spite of a favorable notice in the ''Athe- 
naeum." 

His third work was at once more ambitious and 
successful, commanding a considerable share of public 



62 REMINISCENCES OE CHORLEY. 

attention, and attaining to the well-nigh unique dis- 
tinction (for him) of a second edition. The subject was 
the life and correspondence of Mrs. Hemans, of whom 
he had already contributed some personal recollections 
to the " Athenaeum " in 1835. After her removal 
from Liverpool to Dublin, she had addressed several 
letters to him, which formed the nucleus of the work; 
but his chief materials were put into his hands by her 
surviving relatives, and its profits, after his own remu- 
neration had been deducted, were appropriated to the 
benefit of her children. The principles that guided 
him in undertaking her biography are clearly stated 
in another letter to his friend at Liverpool, dated 
July 1835:— 

" It is more than probable, too (this I mention in confi- 
dence), that I may have the arranging and editing of Mrs.. 
Hemans' papers and published works, with the writing of 
her life. This will be a most laborious undertaking, but for 
some reasons I should rather like it. She was little under- 
stood, even by her friends, and as too blindly admired by 
some, as she was foolishly and unjustly commented upon by 
those who would not know her, or could not understand her. 
Her life was one of misfortune, and false influence on the 
part of those who had her character in their hands at a time 
when it might have taken any form ; and had they taught 
her that the imagination gains strength and scope from the 
reason being cultivated in proportion with it ; that nothing 
is jirSt rate and marked for an enduring fame but something 
which shall profit the world and expand its sympathies, as 
well as please its ear and its fancy, she might, I know, have 
taken a stand in our literature far higher than she did. As 
it was, she was coming to this calmer and loftier state of 



"MEMORIALS OF MRS. HEMANS' 



63 



mind when she died. It is on this principle that I should 
write the life of any literary person. The responsibilities 
are too apt to be overlooked by those who associate with 
and sit in judgment on the gifted ; and yet without they 
are recognised and followed up, I am persuaded no writer 
will exercise a permanent influence upon the public. We 
have a proof of this in the cases of Wordsworth and Byron. 
The former is only coming to his fame ; (I mean among the 
good and worthy); the latter almost lived his out before he 
died." 

Faithful to the canons of biography here laid down, 
and sympathetic yet discriminating in its estimate of 
the poetess, this work, published by Messrs. Saunders 
and Otley, in 1836, under the title of " Memorials of 
the Life of Mrs. Hemans," constitutes an honorable 
tribute to her genius, which has not been superseded 
by any more complete memoir. 

In this country, where her fame was equal to or 
higher than that which she enjoyed in England the 
book was immediately republished. Its delineation of 
the influences impressed upon her nature by the scene- 
ry and associations amid which she lived, of the tone 
of culture and refinement diffused by her presence in 
Liverpool society, and of the calm atmosphere of piety 
wherein her declining years were passed, is marked by 
grace and skill. Disclaiming the dignity of a biogra- 
pher, Chorley wisely confines himself to sketching the 
mere outline of her life, and expends his labor upon 
the task of critical analysis, for which he was better 
fitted. To those who desire a fuller acquaintance with 
the mind of the poetess than her works supply, these 
Memorials may be safely commended. 



64 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 

During 1837 Chorley occupied such hours as he 
could spare from his regular literary work in the com- 
position of a drama, the subject of which had suggested 
itself while reading Llorente's " History of the Inquisi- 
tion." The incident selected was scarcely of sufficient 
weight to serve as the foundation of a dramatic struc- 
ture, and required the aid of adventitious materials, 
which detracted from its importance without having 
much value of their own. Avowedly written for 
presentment on the stage, " Fontibel" is pervaded by a 
general current of action, and interspersed with two or 
three effective situations, which if turned to account by 
intelligent actors, might have procured for it a fair 
share of success. But its conceptions of character offeF 
no original features, and its language no beauties of 
thought or fancy that would commend it to the atten- 
tion of a reader ; and as the opportunity of obtaining 
representation for it was denied him he wisely abstained 
from giving it publication. 

The higher walks of Art, indeed, were as yet 
beyond his reach. His critical faculty, wherein his 
real strength at all times lay, was very early developed ; 
but he arrived late at the full measure of his powers 
as a creator of character — a measure which, though 
never attaining to the highest, entitled him, in the 
judgment of two of his greatest contemporaries, Robert 
Browning and Charles Dickens, to an honorable place 
among the dramatists and novelists of the century. 
Up to this time, however, he had not exceeded medi- 
ocrity in the walk of belles-lettres, to which he chiefly 
addicted himself. His vers de societe were often grace- 
ful and tuneful, but no more : far inferior to those of 






ESTIMA TE OF HIS EARL Y LITER AR Y EFFORTS. 65 

his contemporary, Praed ; nor even ranking so high in 
point of finish and skill as the compositions of Fitz- 
gerald and Haynes Bayly, with which they suggest 
comparison. There are some of his contributions, how- 
ever, to the ephemeral literature of the boudoir — the 
" Keepsakes," " Souvenirs," and "Books of Beauty," 
then in vogue — which display indications of higher 
quality. The unworldly heart, and genuine simplicity 
which Chorley retained unspoilt by the frivolity and 
affectation of the coteries wherein this literature was 
fostered, make themselves felt in such verses. In spite 
of their incompleteness of construction and frequent 
poverty of diction, there is often a tender grace about 
their sentiment, and a quaint flavor about their style, 
which, to those who knew the writer, are very pleasantly 
characteristic of him. Of his more strictly lyrical 
compositions, or songs — of which he wrote a consider- 
able number at this period — it is proper to observe, 
that they were framed in accordance with a principle 
laid down by him in a review of Moore's " Irish Melo- 
dies" (" Athenaeum," 1834), that the words should never 
be dissociated in idea from the music, but be regarded 
as drawings in outline, designed to receive the addition 
of color, and incomplete without it, but having none 
of their own. There is accordingly a thinness of 
texture, and a bareness of ornament about these lyrics, 
by which an unprepared reader is likely to be repelled. 
That they do not want delicacy of fancy, however, 
will be sufficiently evident from the following 
specimen : — 



66 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY, 

ECHO SONG. 

Who calleth where the rock 

The river's haste is staying, 
The shepherd's pipe to mock, 
Who, with his placid flock 

Strolls on, old tunes a-playing? 
'Tis Echo ! 
O merry maiden ! 
O thou shy maiden 
Sing on ever — for ever ! 

Who in the greenwood dwells, 

Far down its leafy alleys, 
And, in faint chime of bells, 
The hour of sunset tells 
To the fast glooming valleys ? 
'Tis Echo ! 
O lonely maiden ! 
O thou sad maiden ! 
Sing on ever — for ever ! 

But, strange and wandering sprite ! 

Shall never poet see thee ? 
Shall never stainless knight, 
With broadsword keen and bright, 
From this enchanter free thee ? 

No, Echo ! 

Thou airy maiden ! 

Thou charmed maiden ! 

Viewless ever — for ever ! 

(CONTI, AND OTHER TALES, vol. iii. p. I30.) 



LOVE OF PICTORIAL ART. 67 

Opportunities and means of pursuing that steady 
course of self-culture essential to the formation of a 
complete artist were, unfortunately, denied to him at 
this period of his career. His unremitting labors, 
both as author and critic, left him comparatively little 
leisure for the study of works other than those which 
he was called upon to read or review professionally. 
Scarcely fewer than a hundred works, good, bad, and 
indifferent, were annually submitted to his judgment 
during the early part of his connection with the 
" Athenaeum." To a mind, however, so genuinely 
critical as his, the duty of discrimination is itself a 
pleasure ; and if his drudgery consisted in meting out 
justice to inferior literature, he found his relaxation 
in the quiet perusal of the highest. Of a volume of 
poems by Wordsworth, published in 1835, ne wrote 
to his friend at Liverpool, in language of the warmest 
praise — commending it to her study as a " perfect 
mine of lofty thoughts and beautiful imagery ; more 
refined, and less alloyed by eccentricity, than any of 
his former works. There are parts of it, which, for 
the extreme beauty of their thoughts, I could not 
read to myself without my eyes filling with tears." A 
few years later, in his journal, he refers to the great 
enjoyment he had derived from reading the works of 
Sir Thomas Browne among old authors, and, among 
modern literature, the recently-published poems of 
Mr. Tennyson, and the " Rienzi" of Lord Lytton. 

His love of pictorial Art — which he was also called 
upon to study professionally — was as genuine as his 
love of literature, and he lost no opportunity of culti- 
vating his tastes. The exceeding delight with which 



68 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

he had seen the exhibitions of Old Masters at the 
British Institution and elsewhere, and Sir Thomas 
Lawrence's collection of their drawings, is more than 
once recorded in his journal. Under date of August 
2d, 1836, he writes: — 

" Just returned from looking at the Michael Angelo 
drawings. Here again one feels the difference — how 
strongly ! — between those who work for immortality and 
those who manufacture for the hour. I expected anatomical 
precision and grandeur of conception, of course, but hardly 
that I should be able (so little experienced in old pictures) 
to throw myself loose enough of the conventionalisms of a 
taste nourished among modern drawing-room works, to be 
able to enjoy and appreciate as much as I did. One or two 
things struck me particularly. All the Christs have a 
divinity about them I never saw before in any painted idea 
of the Ecce Homo. One in particular, crucified between 
the two thieves, though sketchy compared with some others, 
affected me : the two outside figures were writhing in the 
agonies of animal death ; in Him, the agonies of the last 
hour had no power over the patience and sweetness of his 
nature. The head is upturned almost with adoration ; the 
limbs languid and stiffening, but still calm." 

In the drama — apart from its association with 
music — he had also a keen enjoyment. The imper- 
sonation of Lear by Forrest, the American tragedian 
(at Drury Lane, in November, 1836), greatly impressed 
him. Comparing Forrest with Macready, he says : — 

" However much Macready moves one at the time by 
the subtle intellect of his personifications, I never am much 



TALFO URD' S " ION." 69 

the better for it afterwards — never find a word, a look, an 
attitude written on my heart. There are certain points of 
Mr. Forrest's playing that I shall never forget to my dying 

day There is a force, without violence, in his 

passionate parts, which he owes much to his physical con- 
formation ; but which, thrown into the body of an infirm 
old king (his Lear was very kingly), is most awful and 
withering ; as, for instance, where he slides down upon his 
knees, with — 

" ' For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
" ' To be my child, Cordelia.' " 

Of Talfourd's " Ion," Chorley's opinion has already- 
been quoted. His estimate of Lord Lytton's " La 
Valliere " and its actors was not so high. He was 
present at its first performance, in December, 1836. 

"The house," he writes, "was surly and disposed to 
cavil ; the stage management injudicious enough to have 
damned the piece twice over, had there not been Miss Faucit 
in the part of the Duchess, a part I should not have fancied 
difficult ; and Vandenhoff in Louis Quatorze, a dull Brum- 
magem king ; and Farren as De Lauzun, with the same oily, 
croaking voice, and impotent leer, and sly slope of a step 
that makes his old men pinks of dotage. . . . But the play 
was not damned, thanks to Macready's Brageleone. It will 
not do however ; there are grand things in it, but a want of 
heart palpable to the instinct; and I verily think instinct is 
your best dramatic critic in a person of some slight intellect. 
The Court scenes are flat and flippant, compared with what 
Bulwer might have made them ; and the verse, though full 
of imagery and high thoughts, by fits which almost rise to 
the unapproachable, so tame and plethoric as to be a sensi- 
ble drawback to the success of the piece." 



70 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



Lord Lytton's " Lady of Lyons," on the occasion 
of its first and very successful representation in Feb- 
ruary, 1838, was not announced with the author's 
name, and a good deal of public curiosity was excited 
to ascertain it. " By some strange blunder," as Chor- 
ley writes in his journal of the 24th February, " the 
1 Chronicle ' printed my name for the author's," on the 
day previous. Congratulatory notes from his friends 
followed this announcement ; which, at first, he did 
not take the trouble to contradict publicly, " from a 
natural imagination that the author and his friends 
would set it right." But a day or two later, in answer 
to a correspondent, " the Chronicle people distinctly 
continued to announce the play as mine ; " and the 
blunder was repeated by the " Morning Herald," in 
reporting an address of Mr. Macready from the stage, 
in which, on behalf of the author, he disavowed the 
"revolutionary tendencies" which some wiseacres had 
discovered in the design of the play. Upon reading 
the second announcement in the " Chronicle," Chorley 
at once wrote to disavow the authorship, and the mys- 
tery was soon solved by the avowal of the real author. 
The mistake was a curious one, and not unflattering 
to so young a writer ; testifying, as it did, to his hav- 
ing obtained a recognized position in letters, and a 
reputation from which far greater achievements were 
reasonably to be expected. After having seen the 
play represented, however, he does not appear to have 
been flattered by the ascription. He thought it " a 
sort of cross between Kotzebue and Sheridan, with the 
flat writing but human passion of the first in its greater 
scenes, and little brilliant points here and there, which 



" THE A UTHORS OF ENGLAND: 



n 



remind one of " the blank leaf between the Bible and 
Prayer Book." It is as carefully constructed as it is 
carelessly written. For the poetry of the few speeches 
which are in blank verse, there is nothing to be said ; 
a snap-dragon flame setting up for a sunset. In short, 
as an opus it is not much ; as an acting play it is every- 
thing." 

He entertained a much higher opinion of Lord 
Lytton's powers as a novelist than as a dramatist ; 
and an opportunity of expressing this was afforded 
him in the course of the same year, when he published 
" The Authors of England," a series of biographical 
and critical notices of the most distinguished modern 
writers, designed to accompany a set of medallion por- 
traits, engraved according to a process recently in- 
vented by M. Collas. The authors thus illustrated 
were Byron, Coleridge, Lamb, Shelley, Scott, and 
Mrs. Hemans, among the past, and Bulwer, Campbell, 
Moore, Southey, Wordsworth, Lady Blessington, Miss 
Mitford, and Lady Morgan among the living. All 
these sketches are gracefully and sympathetically 
written ; those on Lord Lytton and Byron being, per- 
haps, the most discriminating ; that on Lamb the 
most genial in its appreciation. The writer's personal 
regard is pleasantly, but unobtrusively, shown in the 
notices of Lady Blessington and Miss Mitford. The 
book was written by commission for the publisher, Mr. 
Tilt, who paid him 150/. as an honorarium. A second 
edition was called for in 1861. 

Articles on literary and musical themes in the 
" London and Westminster" and " British and Foreign" 
Reviews, and sundry minor sketches occupied his pen 



^2 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 

during the remainder of 1838. In the following year 
he completed and published, anonymously, a three- 
volume novel, entitled " The Lion ; a Tale of the 
Coteries," for the copyright of which he received 
100/. from Mr. Colburn. The theme of this story, 
like that of " Conti," is the career of a " genius" and 
his relations with society — a subject that haunted 
Chorley's imagination almost to the close of his life, 
and of which he has attempted three or four distinct 
illustrations. The present example differs from the 
others, in that the career of a poet instead of a musi- 
cian is chosen to point the intended moral. Here 
again, although less obviously than was the case in 
" Conti," the execution falls far below the design. 

il Its failure," as he notes in his journal, " was, as 
entire, if not as unexpected, as has attended all my 
former efforts." Although he bore up against depres- 
sion by habituating his mind " to expect every draw- 
back and misadventure as a matter of course," he was 
deeply hurt by the want of appreciation he experi- 
enced in quarters where he thought himself entitled 
to look for it, more especially by " the wrong-headed 
unfairness" of a review in the " Athenaeum." " It was 
the rule" with this journal, however, as he subse- 
quently discovered, and has noted in one of his 
autobiographical fragments, " to avoid the slightest 
undue favor to any of the staff, and even to dismiss 
the individual publications of contributors, oftentimes 
laconically, sometimes with a searching display of 
errors and weak points, which in more flagrant cases 
might have been passed over." 

A notice of his next work, " Music and Manners 



FAILURE OF HIS NOVEL. 73 

in France and North Germany," must be preceded by 
some reference to the tours of 1839, 1840, and 1841, 
from the memoranda of which it was written. This it 
will be better to reserve for subsequent chapters. 
4 



CHAPTER V. 

Personal and social life in London from 1834 to 1841 — Shock occasioned 
by the death of Mr. Benson Rathbone — Effects of loneliness and ill- 
health — Counter-influences of personal friendship and love of 
society — Mr. and Mrs. Proctor — Mr. and Mrs. Basil Montagu — Henry 
Roscoe, Herr Moscheles, Chevalier Neukomn, and N. P. Willis — 
Lady Blessington and Count D'Orsay — Society at Gore House — 
Bon mots — La Guiccioli — Interviews with Landor, Isaac Disraeli, 
and M. Rio — Lord Lytton — Sydney Smith — Miss Mitford and John 
Kenyon — George Darley — Justice Talfourd — Mr.Browning — George 
Grote — Mr. and Mrs.. Howitt— Family relations — Deaths of Dr. 
Rutter and Mrs. Rathbone. 

TO a nature so affectionate as Chorley's the separa- 
tion from his family which his life in London 
involved, was a great trial in itself, but his loneliness 
was redoubled by a loss which befell him a few months 
after his settlement in his new position. His early 
friend Mr. Benson Rathbone, met with sudden death 
by a fall from a stage-coach. The news was conveyed 
to Chorley just as he was on the point of starting to 
a musical festival at Exeter Hall. The shock for 
awhile completely unmanned him, and " left traces " 
which, as he said, were " not to be effaced." 

Writing soon afterwards, in December, 1834, to a 
friend in Liverpool, he thus gave vent to his feelings : — 

" This loss of my dearest and most valued friend has 
drawn you all closer to me. If I were a person (which I 
trust I am not) generally to forget old affections in new 



DEA TH OF MR. RA THBONE. 75 

scenes and interests, he is not one who could be forgotten; 
and so hard is it to me to realize his loss, that I am still 
startling myself by forming plans, etc., with reference to 
him, as of old. This is very painful, but it will pass away : 
and you must know by yourself how different he was from 
common friends, and therefore how much nearer and dearer 
to all those whom he did love. I am thinking much of you 
just now. Anniversaries are always painful things to me, 
and I have often been glad (particularly since I left home as 
a resident) that we were never particular in keeping them. 
You will remember me on Christmas-day, which I believe I 
shall pass alone. I am sure that I shall be almost as much 
with you as at home ; and it will be a relief I cannot describe 
when the New Year is turned. But I trust I can feel that 
these painful dispensations do not come altogether in vain, 
if they fix our minds more firmly upon what is true, and just, 
and excellent in the midst of the false, hurrying world we 
live in. You who dwell quietly among your own people 
cannot have the same need of this as one like myself, living 
in a whirlpool. . . . 

" Your affectionate 

" Henry F. Chorley." 

It was the natural result of Chorley's loneliness, 
that the tendency to introspection, to which he was 
always prone, should be morbidly aggravated. In 
default of a living companion to whom he could com- 
municate his ambitions and fears, his doubts and 
sorrows, he confided them to his journal, and dwelt 
with a scrutiny, often painful in its minuteness, upon 
the influences to which his mind was subjected, and 
the motives that actuated his conduct. In him this 
habit was intensified by his physical weakness. From 



76 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

childhood he was the victim of a chronic affection of 
the heart, which eventually proved fatal to him. 
Though ordinarily permitting him the free exercise of 
his powers, it often incapacitated him for any exertion, 
and was seldom long absent as a source of bodily 
distress and mental oppression. It is evident from 
his journals that he lived under an abiding sense of 
the shadow of impending death ; and though there is 
no trace of alarm in his references to the prospect, 
the tinge of melancholy imparted to his language 
betrays the effect produced by it. To the operation 
of these causes may be fairly attributed much of what 
was peculiar in his disposition. The habitual nervous 
sensibility and quaintness of manner, the too frequent 
irritability of temper and querulousness of tone that 
characterized him in later life were undoubtedly de- 
veloped, if not actually generated, by them. That 
their effect was not even more marked than it was, 
may be ascribed to the counter-influences of his con- 
stitutional youthfulness of spirits and yearning for 
sympathy. Both of these tendencies in his nature 
fortunately combined to drive him out of himself, and 
to moderate, although they failed to overcome, his 
unhealthy proclivities. When past his sixtieth year, 
he entered with unflagging enjoyment into social 
amusements which pall upon most men before thirty ; 
and to the last he preserved a warmth of heart, a 
readiness of response to offers of friendship from con- 
genial natures, that is usually characteristic only of 
the young, and with them is ordinarily satisfied by the 
formation of one or two intimate attachments. In 
both these respects he seems to have been exception- 



MR. AND MRS. BASIL MONTAGU 77 

ally gifted. A love of general society and a thirst 
for personal friendship, were united in him in a very 
singular degree. The fact gives a special character to 
his reminiscences, which will be sufficiently perceptible 
as our selection from them proceeds. 

It was fortunate for him that, possessing these 
tastes, he was brought into contact, at an early period 
of his career, with a few distinguished persons who 
formed the centres of extensive circles. 

" ' By happy chance,' he writes, in a detached passage 
of his autobiography, ' I had already a few acquaintances 
in London, made during previous flying visits, whom time 
converted into friends. One or two of these I have the 
fortune to retain yet. A sonnet, which I had written in my 
own copy of ' English Songs,' gave me the pleasure and 
privilege of knowing that delicious lyrist and high-hearted 
man, Barry Cornwall, and through him the household of 
of Mr. and Mrs. Basil Montagu. Both were then receiving 
some of the choicest persons who have adorned literature 
and art ; and the delight and the culture to be gained by 
standing as a background figure in such circles cannot be 
over-rated. Well has Miss Edgeworth remarked in her 
' Helen,' ' that there is a time in every man's life when such 
experiences are of priceless value.' " # 

* A pleasant note that Chorley received, two years later, from Mr. 
Proctor, will show the terms on which they stood : — 

" 5, Grove-End Place, St. John's Wood, 
"3rd September, 1836. 

" Dear Chorley: — 

" Pray leave your types, and proofs, and other such matter, and come 
and dine with us to-morrow at a quarter past five quietly. Walk over 
in your boots, or hail the omnibus, as you prefer. It is idle to work 
for posterity always. Give me the despised present. Why should we 



yZ REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

" Before I came to London, too, as a resident, another 
happy chance had introduced me into the circle gathered 
around him by Moscheles and his accomplished wife. Since 
the doors of that musical house were closed, by the removal 
of the family to Germany, there has been nothing of the 
kind in this city, with the exception of the Kemble house, 
during the short time when Adelaide Kemble was on the 
musical stage. 

" A third piece of good fortune for me was access to Mr. 
Henry Roscoe — by far the most gifted of the sons of the 
Italian historian — who had sufficiently distinguished himself 
at an early age to make his death, ere the prime of life and 
success were entered on, a heavy and cruel loss to all who 
were privileged to know him. His accomplishments were 
many and real ; his solidity of judgment was as great as 
his quickness of sympathy. Like all first-class persons I 
have known, his patience with those inferior to himself — 
patience entirely clear of painful condescension — was great 
and genuine. Every one was seen to the best possible 
advantage when beside Henry Roscoe. He could listen 
and encourage, as well as talk with a natural and flowing 
brilliancy which I have never heard exceeded — not three 
times in my life equalled. Though- so rich in every gift 
which attracts and retains admiration, he was as unhack- 

scorn ourselves for our shadows ? Why leave our pudding to be cooked 
by others, and cater only for fame ? Damn fame ! What is the good 
of it ? or the pleasure of it ? or the use in any way of it ? If ever I get 
any, I'll truckle it away for something solid at the chandler's shop. If 
you come (and pray do), you will see — besides my wife and myself — a 
piece of fish, a ditto of meat, and a ditto of pie (or pudding), and the 
Cavalier Sigismond Neukomm, who is about to leave this unholy island 
(on Wednesday), for the sanctities of Paris. The Dilkes I suppose are 
dead — who are the executors ? 

" Yours ever, 

" B. W. Procter." 



HERR MOSCHELES. 



79 



neyed and as simple in his manners as the veriest boy who 
rattles away, out of the fullness of his high spirits, without 
an idea of producing effect. In the hour of trouble, he 
was as tender and patient in sympathy as a woman — with 
such instant justice and strength of decision as belongs to 
a truthful, acute, and strong man. It was impossible to be 
afraid or affected in his company. He was one of those 
whose early departure — whereas so many false and evil 
people are left to cumber and poison the earth — tempts 
those left behind to rebellious thoughts and questionings, 
only to be silenced by the solemn words : — 

" ' What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know 
hereafter. 1 

" It has been my duty to lay leaves on many tombstones, 
and, in writing of the deceased, to disregard the adage, as 
false and mischievous as any of those which have tended to 
corrupt the morals of mankind, ' De mortuis? etc.; but of 
none have I been able to speak in higher and more unquali- 
fied terms of admiration than Henry Roscoe. 

" If I have one dying word of counsel for those entering 
life when I am leaving it, it will be, — Live with your supe- 
riors — with those to whom you can look up. There comes 
a strength of such a determination with which ' no stranger 
can intermeddle.' " 

Of the late Herr Moscheles, with whom Chorley 
became very intimate, and a less valuable acquaint- 
ance, to whose introduction this intimacy was due, 
some further reminisences are contained in the follow- 
ing sketch : — 

" Our friendship was cast on in a strange hap-hazard 
fashion. I had written a small song, which appeared in the 
1 Forget-me-not,' some forty years ago — the first I ever pub- 



gO REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

lished — and the verses were shown by Mrs. Bowdich, later 
Mrs. Lee, who was then writing her queer Ashantee stories 
for the same annual, to the Chevalier Neukomm. Of all 
the men of talent whom I have ever known, he was the most 
deliberate in turning to account every gift, every talent, 
every creature-comfort to be procured from others ; withal, 
shrewd, pleasant, universally educated beyond the generali- 
ty of the musical composers of his period. A man who had 
been largely ' knocked about,' and had been hardened by 
the process into the habit or duty of knocking about any one 
whom he could fascinate into believing in him. Never was 
any man more adroit in catering for his own comforts — in 
administering vicarious benevolence. Once having gained 
entrance into a house, he remained there, with a possession 
of self-possession the like of which I have never seen. 
There was no possibility of dislodging him, save at his own 
deliberate will and pleasure. He would have hours and 
usages regulated in conformity with his own tastes ; and 
these were more regulated by individual whimsy than univer- 
sal convenience. He must dine at one peculiar hour — at no 
other. Having embraced homoeopathy to its fullest extent, 
he would have his own dinner expressly made and provided. 
The light must be regulated to suit his eyes — the tempera- 
ture to fit his endurance. But, as rarely fails to be the case 
in this world of shy or sycophantic persons, he compelled 
obedience to his decrees ; and, on the strength of a slender 
musical talent, a smooth diplomatic manner, and some small 
insight into other worlds than his own, he maintained a 
place, in its lesser sphere, as astounding and autocratic as 
that of the great Samuel Johnson, when hie ruled the house- 
hold of the Thrales with a rod of iron. Neukomm had no 
artistic vigor or skill to insure a lasting popularity for his 
music. It has passed and gone into the limbo of oblivion. 
Yet, for some five years, he held a first place in England, 



THE CHEVALIER NEUKOMM. §1 

and was in honored request at every great provincial music- 
meeting. He was at Manchester; at Derby, where, I think, 
his oratorio ' Mount Sinai ' was produced ; most prominent 
at Birmingham, for which he wrote his unsuccessful ' David ' 
— for awhile called 'The King of Birmingham.' I question 
whether a note of his music lives in any man's recollection, 
unless it be ' The Sea,' to the spirited and stirring words of 
Barry Cornwall. 

" This song made at once a striking mark on the public 
ear and heart. The spirited setting bore out the spirited 
words ; and the spirited singing and saying of both by Mr. 
Henry Phillips had no small share in the brilliant success. 
I can only call to mind another modern sea song — Bishop's 
' O Firm as Oak,' which in the least holds its place by the 
side of Neukomm's in right of merit. Neither are sung for 
the moment. Both may return. The Chevalier was as cun- 
ning in his generation as his poet was the reverse. On the 
strength of this success and his partner's simplicity, the 
musician beguiled the poet to write some half-hundred lyrics 
for music, the larger number of which are already among 
the classics of English song, in grace and melody recalling 
the best of our old dramatists, and surprisingly little touched 
by conceit. Will it be believed, that for such admirable ser- 
vice the noble-hearted poet was never even offered the 
slightest share in gains, which would have had no existence 
save for his suggesting genius, by the miserable Chevalier ? 
It only dawned on him that his share of the songs must have 
some value, when the publishers, without hint or solicita- 
tion, in acknowledgment of the success, sent a slight present 
of jewelry to a m*ember of his family. It is sadly true that 
too many musicians have shown a like disregard of the 
laws of meum and tnum in regard to the verse they 
have set. The case, in every one's interest, cannot be 
too plainly stated ; but a more flagrant illustration does 
4* 



82 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

not exist than the dealings of Neukomm with the author of 
'Mirandola.' 

" Enough of a distasteful subject. My own gains from 
the notice of the Chevalier were of a different quality — gains 
beyond the desert of an obscure rhymester trying to struggle 
into print. It was on one of those hurried visits to London, 
without the excitement of which, the hated drudgery of mer- 
cantile life among uncongenial spirits would have become 
intolerable, that M. Neukomm introduced me to one of the 
happiest musical households and family circles I have ever 
known — that of Moscheles.* This was only a few years 
after his marriage. Our good understanding remained un- 
broken till the last hour of his life. All that he had of what 
was genial in his nature, and agreeable in his life I was per- 
mitted to enjoy. In his house were to be met the best celeb- 
rities of literature and art. The standard of general culti- 
vation, morals, and manners among musicians has risen 
largely during the last five-and-thirty years ; but there has 
been, I repeat, no ground such as that house offered, where 
the best of the best and the newest of the new met on such 
perfect terms of ease and equality. I have good reason to 
speak of it with most grateful remembrance. 

" I have never known a man in whom two entirely dis- 
tinct natures — those of excessive caution and equal liberali- 
ty — were so intimately combined. The caution in money 
matters, the liberality in time, counsel, interest given 
without stint or envy to all contemporary or rising artists. 
I detected no trace of jealousy in his nature ; on the other 
hand, a curiosity to make acquaintance with all that was 
new or promising, and as much liberality df judgment as was 

* This household and circle are very fully described in " Recent 
Music and Musicians " a biography of Moscheles, containing copious 
extracts from his journals and correspondence. (New York : Henry 
Holt & Co.) 



MR. N. P. WILLIS. 83 

consistent with a closeness of character, which intensified 
his nationality." 

Another acquaintance, through whom Chorley 
obtained a valued and lifelong friend, was the late 
Nathaniel P. Willis. They met, as the following 
notice tells us, by an accident : — 

"In the autumn of 1834, while travelling in Italy, Mr. N. 
P. Willis had met with a gentleman well acquainted with my 
elder brother. This gentleman had given a letter for my 
brother to Mr. Willis, who gathered introductions to persons 
of every degree of fortune or of every circle more solicitous- 
ly than any one whom I have ever seen. Mr. Willis, meet- 
ing me by chance at a friend's house, naturally enough 

mistook me for the person to whom Mr. 's letter was 

addressed, and I was as naturally glad to make an agreeable 
acquaintance. And agreeable I found Mr. Willis, and kind- 
ly in his way, though flimsy in his acquirements and flashy 
in his manners — a thorough literary getter-on, but a better- 
natured one than many I have since known. At that time 
of my life, it seemed a necessity for me to have some one to 
talk over my schemes with, and show my attempts to. He, 
too, seemed to have the same fancy, though it was an un- 
equal bargain, since he wrote much less, because far more 
carefully than I. In short, it was an intimacy that could not 
under any circumstances, have lasted long, but which, while 
it did last, was pleasant to both." 

In an entry in his journal of 1837 ne describes some- 
what more minutely the impression which this once 
celebrated litterateur made upon Chorley at the first 
blush : 

" There, was something very agreeable and fascinating in 



84 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE Y. 

his manner — a sort of gentle flattery that made you feel as 
if he had become peculiarly interested in you. I have been 
always too prone to attach myself to anyone who would 
let me, so took him up at once on his own showing. Then 
he was a literary man of my own age, and about my own 
means, with as much less of thought as he had more of 
cleverness. And I believe, for a time, he did like me in his 
way ) gave me good advice about dress, manners, etc. — a 
little too magnificently I now think — and certainly was of 
use to me in making me modulate my voice. We passed a 
part of every day together ; dreamed dreams, and schemed 
schemes, and canvassed our tailors' bills, etc. He read to 
me his ' Melanie ' in progress, and, which was better, lis- 
tened while I read to him. . . . With great diffidence I 
sent through him a chanson to my Lady Blessington, who 
was then his great patroness and friend ; and this he gave 
her with many kind words. It was ' Love at Sea ; ' on 
which she expressed a wish to see me." 

Chorley's acquaintance with Willis appears to have 
closed with the latter's departure " for Scotland, full of 
the intention (as he professed himself) of marrying a 
Scotch lady with red hair, who (according to his usual 
story) had fallen in love with him. But he had fancied 
that Lady Blessington had already been smitten ! As 
he had a box full of locks of hair, trophies of his 
continental Don Giovannism, perhaps he was excu- 
sable. Before he left town, however, he lastingly 
befriended Chorley by the introduction to Lady Bles- 
sington above referred to. Of this brilliant woman, 
and the accomplished man with whom her name will 
always be associated, we have the following 
reminiscence : — 



LAD Y BLESSING TON g $ 

"Lady Blessington was then gathering about her a circle 
of the younger literary men of London, in addition to the 
older and more distinguished friends made by her before her 
widowhood. I went with Willis to the studio of Mr. Roth- 
well, who was engaged on a half-length portrait of her, which 
he never, I believe, completed, and was introduced to her. 
She said a few kind words in that winning and gracious 
manner which no woman's welcome can have ever surpassed ; 
and from that moment till the day of her death in Paris, I 
experienced only a long course of kind constructions and 
good offices. She was a steady friend, through good report 
and evil report, for those to whom she professed friendship. 
Such faults as she had belonged to her position, to her past 
history, and to the disloyalty of many who paid court to her 
by paying court to her faults, and who then carried into the 
outer world depreciating reports of the wit, the banter, the 
sarcasm, and the epigram, which but for their urgings and 
incitements would have been always kindly, however mirthful. 

" She must have had originally the most sunny of sunny 
natures. As it was, I have never seen anything like her 
vivacity and sweet cheerfulness during the early years when 
I knew her. She had a singular power of entertaining her- 
self by her own stories ; the keenness of an Irishwoman in 
relishing fun and repartee, strange turns of language, and 
bright touches of character. A fairer, kinder, more universal 
recipient of everything that came within the possibilities of 
her mind, I have never known. I think the only genuine 
author whose merits she was averse to admit was Hood ; and 
yet she knew Rabelais, and delighted in ' Elia.' It was her 
real disposition to dwell on beauties rather than faults. 
Critical she could be, and as judiciously critical as any 
woman I have ever known, but she never seemed to be so 
willingly. When a poem was read to her, or a book given 
to her, she could always touch on the best passage, the bright 



86 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

point; and rarely missed the purpose of the work, if purpose 
it had. When I think of the myriads I have known who, on 
such occasions, betwixt a desire to show sagacity, slowness 
to appreciate, or want of tact in expression, flounder on 
betwixt commonplace which is not complimentary, and 
disquisitions that are rather hard to bear, I return to her 
powers and ways of accepting as among the lost graces, which 
have been replaced (say the optimists) by something truer 
and more solid. I doubt it. 

" Her taste in everything was towards the gay, the superb, 
the luxurious ; but on the whole, excellently good. Her eye 
was as quick as lightning; her resources were many and 
original. It will not be forgotten how, twenty years ago, she 
astounded the Opera-goers by appearing in her box with a 
plain transparent cap, which the world in its ignorance, 
called a Quaker's cap ; and the best of all likenesses of her, 
in date later than the lovely Lawrence portrait, is that draw- 
ing by Chalon, in which this 'tire' is represented, with some 
additional loops of ribbon. So, too, her houses in Seamore 
Place and at Kensington Gore were full of fancies which 
have since passed into fashions, and which seemed all to 
belong and to agree with herself. Had she been the selfish 
Sybaritic woman whom many who hated her, witho'ut know- 
ing her, delighted to represent her, she might have indulged 
these joyous and costly humors with impunity ; but she was 
affectionately, inconsiderately liberal — liberal to those of her 
own flesh and blood who had misrepresented and maligned 
her, and who grasped at whatever of bounty she yielded them, 
with scarcely a show of cordiality in return, and who spread 
the old, envious, depreciating tales before the service had 
well been done an hour ! 

" What her early life had been, I cannot pretend to say. 
I have heard her speak of it herself once or twice, when 
moved by very great emotion or injustice from without. 



COUNT D' OR SAY. %>j 

And what woman, in speaking of past error, is unable to 
represent herself as more sinned against than sinning ? I 
have heard, on the other had, some who professed an inti- 
mate knowledge of her private concerns and past adventures 
(which profession is often more common than correct), 
attack her with a bitterness which left her no excuse, no 
virtue, no single redeeming quality — representing her as a 
cold-blooded and unscrupulous adventuress, only fit to figure 
in some novel by a Defoe, which women are not to read. 
That this cannot have been true, every friend of hers will 
bear me out in asserting — and she kept her friends. The 
courage with which she clung to her attachments long after 
they brought her only shame and sorrow, spoke for the 
affectionate heart, which no luxury could spoil and no vicis- 
situde sour." 

" The wit of Count d'Orsay was more quaint than any- 
thing I have heard from Frenchmen (there are touches of 
like quality in Rabelais) — more airy than the brightest 
London wit of my time, those of Sydney Smith and Mr. 
Fonblanque not excepted. It was an artist's wit, capable 
of touching off a character by one trait told in a few odd 
words. The best examples of such esprit when written down, 
look pale and mechanical : something of the aroma dies on 
the lips of the speaker; but an anecdote or two may be 
tried, bringing up as they do the magnificent presence, and 
joyous, prosperous voice and charming temper of him to 
whom they belong. 

"When Sir Henry BJwer was sent on a diplomatic mis- 
sion to Constantinople, ' (Quelle betise, was the Count's ex- 
clamation, 'to send him there among those Turks, with 
their beards and their shawls — those big, handsome fellows 
— a little gray man like that ! They might as well have sent 
one whitebait down the Dardanelles to give the Turks an 
idea of English fish.' 



88 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

" I have heard the Count tell, how, when he was in 
England for the first time (very young, very handsome, and 
not abashed), he was placed at some dinner-party next the 
late Lady Holland. That singular woman, who adroitly 
succeeded in ruling and retaining a distinguished circle, 
longer than either fascination or tyranny might singly have 
accomplished, chanced that day to be in one of her imperi- 
ous humors. She dropped her napkin ; the Count picked 
it up gallantly ; then her fan, then her fork, then her spoon, 
then her glass ; and as often her neighbor stooped and 
restored the lost article. At last, however, the patience of 
the youth gave way, and on her dropping her napkin again, he 
turned and called one of the footmen behind him. ' Put my 
convert on the floor,' said he. ' I will finish my dinner there ; 
it will be so much more convenient to my Lady Holland.' 

" There was every conceivable and inconceivable story 
current in London of the extravagance of the ' King of the 
French ' (as the Count d'Orsay was called among the sport- 
ing folk in the Vale of Aylesbury); but it was never told 
that he had been cradled, as it were, in an ignorance of the 
value of money, such as those will not believe possible who 
have been less indulged and less spoiled and who have 
been less pleasant to indulge and to spoil than he was. 
But extravagance is like collection as a passion. Once let it 
be owned to exist, and there will be found people to forgive 
it, and to feed it, and to find it with new objects. When an 
American gentleman, the gifted Mr. Charles Sumner, was 
in England, his popularity in society became, justly, so great 
and so general, that his friends began to devise what circle 
there was to show him which he had not yet seen, what 
great house that he had not yet visited. And so it was with 
Count d'Orsay. His grandmother, Madame Crawford, de- 
lighted in his beauty, and his sauciness, and his magnificent 
tastes. When he joined his regiment, she fitted him out 



DOWNFALL OF COUNT D'ORSA Y. 



89 



with a service of plate, which made the boy the laughing- 
stock of his comrades. Whether it was broken up into bits, 
or played at lansquenet, or sunk in a marsh, I cannot recol- 
lect ; but one or other catastrophe happened, I do know. 
He was spoiled during most of his life by every one whom 
he came near ; and to one like myself, endowed with many 
luxurious tastes, but whom the discipline of poverty had 
compelled prematurely to weigh and to count, it was a curi- 
ous sight to see, as I often did in the early days of our ac- 
quaintance, how he seemed to take it for granted that every- 
body had any conceivable quantity of five-pound notes. To 
this fancy the Lichfield, Beaufort, Chesterfield, Massey Stan- 
ley set, among whom he was conversant, ministered largely. 
He spent their money for them royally, and made them fancy 
they were inventing all manner of sumptuous and original 
ways of spending it. When the crash and the downfall 
came, and the Count owned himself beaten, ruined, ' done 
for at last ' (as the familiar phrase runs), he said, ' Well, at 
least, if I have nothing else, I will have the best umbrella 
that ever was." The wish was granted by a lady, who 
brought the immured man of pleasure in difficulties an um- 
brella from Paris, with a handle set in jewels. That was a 
type of Count d'Orsay's ideas of poverty and bad weather 
and retrenchment ! 

" But never was Sybarite so little selfish as he. He 
loved extravagance — waste, even. He would give half a 
sovereign to a box-keeper at a theatre, as a matter of course, 
and not ostentation ; but he could also bestow time, pains, 
money, and recollection, with a munificence and a delicacy 
such as showed what a real princely stuff there was in the 
nature of the man whom Fortune had so cruelly spoiled. 
He had ' the memory of the heart in perfection.' 

The thoughtful kindness shown by Lady Blessing- 



gO REMINISCENCES OF CHCRLEY. 

ton, as the presiding genius in an extensive sphere of 
literary and social notabilities, to a young and untried 
man of letters such as Chorley, at the outset of his 
career, was of the utmost value to him, and merited 
the grateful acknowledgment it received. She seems 
to have conceived a genuine regard for him, and taken 
an active interest in his concerns ; inviting him habit- 
ually to her dinners and soirees, enlisting him as a con- 
tributor to the Annuals of which she was editress, and 
giving the weight of her personal recommendation to 
the publishers with whom he wished to negotiate. 
The homage which was all that he had to offer in 
return, was loyally rendered, as many a generous review 
and flattering verse may attest. The good understand- 
ing between them was uninterrupted. Of the gloom 
by which her closing days were clouded he was no 
unmoved spectator; and her death, in 1850, is chron- 
icled in his journal as the rupture of one his cherished 
ties. In such of her letters as he has preserved there 
are no marked traces of the writer's individuality ; but 
one may be inserted as somewhat less colorless than 
the rest, an evidence of the kindly relations subsisting 
between the correspondents : — 

w Gore House, May 20th, 1844. 
" My dear Mr. Chorley : — 

" Will you have the kindness to forward the accompanying 
note to your brother ? I am greatly pleased with the sonnets. 
What a charming and graceful manner of commemorating his 
tour ! The volume is really too good not to be published, 
for it would do the author credit.* A thousand thanks for 

* A series of poems, by the late John Rutter Chorley, is apparently 
the subject of this reference. 



SO CIE TY AT LADY BLE SSING TON' S. 9 1 

all your kind offers for my Annuals. What will you say 
when I tell you that I have not yet seen a single plate or 
drawing for the ' Keepsake ? ' You will be glad to hear that 
the Cte. Auguste de Gramont is to be married to Mademoi- 
selle de Segur on the 5th of June. The lady is beautiful 
enough to justify a mariage d? amour ^ which this one is, and 
rich enough to satisfy a mariage de raison. A great family, 
and, in short, in every point an admirable alliance. I read 
with great delight, on Saturday, the admirable letter on Lord 
Byron's poetry, and honor the writer, whoever he may be. I 
regret the engagements which prevent our seeing you as often 
as we could wish ; but we are not summer friends, so that I 
hope, when winter comes, we shall enjoy more of your society. 
Say all that is most kind for me to your sister, and believe 
me always, 

" Your sincere friend, 

" M. Blessington." 

At Lady Blessington's residence in Seamore Place, 
and subsequently at Gore House, hewas, as has been 
said before, a frequent and welcome guest. Of the 
constantly changing and distinguished circle which the 
charm of her grace and wit attracted around her, he 
appears to have been an unobtrusive, but a shrewdly 
observant member. Many a bon-mot and characteristic 
anecdote, which first obtained currency in these salons, 
some of which have passed from the world's memory, 
and may be worth recalling, are registered in his jour- 
nal. Here, for example, are two stories of Theodore 
Hook, which to many will be as good as new : — 

" Aug. i$th, 1835. — Last night, Westmacott told a Hookism 
at Lady Blessington's worthy of being kept. He was at some 
large party or other where the lady of the house was more 
than usually coarsely anxious to get him to make sport for her 



9 2 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



guests. A ring formed round him of people only wanting a 
word's encouragement to burst out into a violent laugh. ' Do, 
Mr. Hook ; do favor us ! ' said the lady for the hundredth 
time. ' Indeed, madam, I can't ; I can't, indeed. I am like 
that little bird, the canary ; can't lay my eggs when any one 
is looking at me.' " 

" Aug. iSth, 1838. — I must post one anecdote of Theodore 
Hook. . . . He was dining at Powell's the other day, to 
meet Lord Canterbury, and the talk fell upon feu Jack 
Reeve. . . . ' Yes,' said Theodore, when they were speaking 
of his funeral, ' I was out that day : / met him in his private 
box, going to the pit!' " 

" Here again is a specimen of Fonblanque's biting humor. 
When Dickens mentioned his intention of visiting America, 
— 'Why,' was the retort, 'arn't there disagreeable people 
enough to describe in Blackburn or Leeds ? ' 

" The following is of anonymous authorship. When one 
Mr. Sparks was appointed to a bishopric, a rival candidate 
consoled himself with the reflection — ' Man is born to trouble 
as the sparks fly upward ! ' 

" The following anecdote of Byron, told on the authority 
of his travelling companion, Mr. Trelawney, a frequent visitor 
at Gore House, is eminently characteristic. When Byron, 
Shelley, and Trelawney were in Italy together, ' some small 
secret (perhaps a bit of London scandal) had come over in 
an English letter, of which Shelley and Trelawney were the 
sole possessors. He (Byron) was most eager to discover 
this, and, when riding out with the latter, went to the childish 
length of jumping off his horse, declaring that he would kneel 
down in the middle of the road and never rise — that he 
would lie down and rot — and let his companion ride over 
him, etc., etc., if he was not satisfied. On which Trelawney 



LA GUICCIOLI. 



93 



improvised some historiette or other, so that Lord Byron got 
up again contented. A few minutes afterwards, La Guic- 
cioli's carriage appeared in sight. Lord Byron rode up to 
it, brimful of his secret, which he presently discharged upon 
his donna. When he rejoined his companion, Trelaw.ney 
upbraided him with treachery. ' Damn it ! what's a secret 
good for else ? Do you think I would have done as I did 
if I had not meant to tell it ? ' His chagrin and humiliation 
may be imagined on being made acquainted with the real 
state of the case." 

La Guiccioli, to whom reference is made in the last 
anecdote, was also a visitor at Gore House. Chorley 
met her there more than once, and afterwards renewed 
the acquaintance in Paris. He describes her, after 
their first meeting, in September, 1835, as "precisely 
what I had expected to find her. Sweet, artless, earn- 
est, untidy, very guiltless of mind, with a pearly white 
complexion, a huge foot, and profuse hair — the color 
of a pale ripe nut— with all the gesticulation and aban- 
don of an Italian woman, and something high-bred in 
spite of all." 

Landor, Isaac Disraeli, Fonblanque, and Lord 
Lytton (then Mr. Bulwer) were among the most re- 
markable persons whom he was in the habit of meet- 
ing in this circle. Of Landor he saw a good deal, and 
records in his journal several noteworthy traits. The 
first impression produced by him was that of " a posi- 
tive, demonstrative man, full of prejudice, with a head 
reminding me of Hogarth's, with his dog at his side." 
Two or three sketches of him in society, as contrasted 
with opposing temperaments, bring out forcibly the 
leading lines of his character : — 



94 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

"May 2>tk, 1838. — Yesterday evening, I had a very rare 
treat — a dinner at Kensington ttte-d-tete with Lady Blessing- 
ton and Mr. Landor • she talking her best, brilliant and 
kindly, and without that touch of self-consciousness which 
she sometimes displays when worked up to it by flatterers. 
and gay companions. Landor, as usual, the very finest 
man's head I have ever seen, and with all his Johnsonian 
disposition to tyrannize and lay down the law in his talk, re- 
strained and refined by an old world courtesy and deference 
towards his bright hostess, for which chivalry is the only 
right word. There was never any one less of ' a pretty man; ' 
but his tale of having gone from Bristol to Bath, to find a 
moss-rose for a girl who had desired one (I suppose for 
some ball), was all natural and graceful, and charming 
enough. . . . Well, this, with a thousand other delightful 
things which there is no remembering, went by, when Mr. 
Disraeli the elder was announced. I had never seen him 
before ■ and, as of course they talked and I heard, I had the 
luxury of undisturbed leisure wherein to use eyes and ears. 
An old gentleman, strictly, in his appearance ; a countenance 
which at first glance (owing, perhaps, to the mouth, which 
hangs) I fancied slightly chargeable with stolidity of expres- 
sion, but which developed strong sense as it talked ; a rather 
soigne style of dress for so old a man, and a manner good- 
humored, complimentary (to Gebir), discursive and prosy, 
bespeaking that engrossment and interest in his own pur- 
suits which might be expected to be found in a person so 
patient in research and collection. But there is a tone of 
the philosophe (or I fancied it), which I did not quite like; 
and that tone (addressing the instinct rather than the judg- 
ment) which is felt or imagined to bespeak (how shall it be ?) 
absence of high principle. No one can be more hardy in 
his negation than Mr. Fonblanque ; in no one a sneer be 
more triumphantly incarnate— and it is sometimes very with- 



LANDOR AND M. RIO. 95 

ering and painful ; but he gives you the impression of con- 
sidering destruction and denial to be his mission • whereas 
there is an easy optimism and expediency associated with 
my idea of Mr. Disraeli, which, while it makes his opinions 
less salient, increases their offence. This is very hardy in 
the way of generalization ! I did not like the manner, above 
all things, in which he talked about the Slave Trade and 
Wilberforce's life — how the latter was set down as a mere 
canter. (Curious to hear this by his own fireside !) Then 
he advanced a theory about Shakespeare's having been long 
in exciting the notice he deserved, as compared with Ben 
Jonson and other dramatists, which was either imcomplete- 
ly stated, or based on shallow premises — most probably the 
former. It gave occasion to a very fine thing by Landor : 
* Yes, Mr. Disraeli, the oak and the ebony take a long time 
to grow up and make wood, but they last for ever ! ' " 

As a final sketch, may be quoted a scene at which 
Landor was contrasted with M. Rio. This gentleman, 
the author of "Art Chretien," Chorley describes as 
" one of the most picturesque-looking men" he had 
seen, and the first he had encountered " of the honest 
and picturesque romanticists of the Middle Ages. An 
enthusiast, but without that distressing measure of 
enthusiasm behind which I at least linger, and in pro- 
portion to the heat of which my mind, whether out 
of conceit or want of sincerity I know not, grows 
cold." On the occasion referred to, Landor was 
" more petulant and paradoxical than I ever heard 
him, saying violent and odd rather than the clever and 
poetical things he is used to say ; of all things in the 
world, choosing to attack the Psalms. M. Rio, who is 
an Ultramontane Catholic, winced under this, as any 



Q 6 reminiscences of chorle y. 

man of good taste must have done. Lady Blessington 
put a stop, however, to this very displeasing talk by 
saying, in her arch, inimitable way, ' Do write some- 
thing better, Mr. Landor ! ' " 

With Lord Lytton, Chorley was frequently brought 
into contact, and had better opportunities of judging 
his character than mere drawing-room intercourse can 
afford. The impression produced was not very favor- 
able. In an entry of Oct. 3 1 st, 1 836, Chorley writes :— 

"We walked home together (from Lady Blessington's), 
and in his cloak and in the dusk he unfolded more of him- 
self to me than I had yet seen ; though I may say that I had 
guessed pretty much of what I did see — an egotism — a van- 
ity — all thrown up to the surface. Yes, he is a thoroughly 
satin character ; but then it is the richest satin. Whether it 
will wear as well as other less glossy materials remains to be 
seen. There was something inconceivably strange to me in 
his dwelling, with a sort of hankering, upon the Count 
d'Orsay's physical advantages ; something beneath the dig- 
nity of an author, my fastidiousness fancied, in the manner 
in which he spoke of his own works, saying that the new 
ones only interested him as far as they were experiments. It 
is a fine, energetic, inquisitive, romantic mind, if I mistake 
not, that has been blighted and opened too soon. There 
wants the repose, ' the peace that passeth all understanding,' 
which I must believe (and if it be a delusion, I hope I shall 
never cease to believe) is the accompaniment of the highest 
mind." 

A little later, after a tete-a-tete dinner with Bulwer 
at the Reform Club, Chorley writes : — 

" I found all my judgments confirmed by further experi- 



LORD L YTTON. 



97 



ence, both as to cleverness and self-conceit. I am not quite 
sure about the heart, or its opposite ; but it is infinitely 
amusing to discover what there is no escaping from, that he 
makes personal appearance his idol, and values Voltaire as 
much on being a tall man as on his satires or essays, etc. It 
is unlucky to make so many valets de chambre of all one's 
acquaintances, when a little reserve and calmness of mind 
might make a tolerable hero of a man.'* 

The differing estimates which he entertained of 
Lord Lytton's powers as a novelist, and as a dramatist, 
have been adverted to elsewhere. At one of these 
expressions of critical independence the author seems 
to have taken umbrage, and a stop was thus put to an 
acquaintance which did not promise to be prosperous. 
In later life, however, the breach appears to have been 
healed, as may be inferred from two or three friendly 
notes, including an invitation to Knebworth, addressed 
to him by Lord Lytton, which Chorley has preserved 
among his correspondence. 

The familiarity which he attained with the habits 
of the social circle of which Lady Blessington was the 
leader, brought about, in a way that was creditable to 
both parties concerned, his acquaintance with one who 
was among the chief ornaments of the rival circle pre- 
sided over by Lady Holland ; perhaps the greatest wit 
of modem times — Sydney Smith. Of this acquaintance 
Chorley has left a brief reminiscence : — 

" Sydney Smith was the only wit, perhaps, on record, 

whom brilliant social success had done nothing to spoil or 

harden ; a man who heartened himself up to enjoy, and to 

make others enjoy, by the sound of his own genial laugh ; 

5 



9 8 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 



whose tongue was as keen as a Damascus blade when he had 
to deal with bigotry, or falsehood, or affectation ; but whose 
forbearance and gentleness to those, however obscure, whom 
he deemed honest, were as healing as his sarcasm could be 
vitriolic. Of all that passed under Lady Blessington's roof, 
the wildest stories were current in the outer world, among 
women of genius especially, who hated with a quintessence 
of feminine bitterness, a woman able to turn to account, so 
brilliantly as Lady Blessington did, the difficulties of her 
position, inevitable because referable to the events of her 
early life. Lady Holland — who ruled her subjects with a 
rod of iron, and who, supported by her lord's urbanity, his 
literary distinction and political influence, ventured on an 
amount of capricious insolence to the obscure, such as 
counterbalanced the recorded deeds of munificence by which 
her name was known abroad and at home — had not a more 
distinguished court of men around her than Lady Blessington 
assembled. It was a duel betwixt gall at Kensington and 
wormwood at Gore House. Sydney Smith was one of Lady 
Holland's ' court-cards,' and was, naturally enough, prepared 
to receive her tales of what passed in the smaller but livelier 
Kensington household. On one occasion, at the house of a 
third person, I heard him, primed with her slander, speak 
of the high gambling by which Lady Blessington, at the 
instance of d'Orsay, lured foolish youths of cash and of quality 
to Gore House. The fact was, there never was such a thing 
there as play, or the shadow of play — not even a rubber of 
whist. I stayed in the house — I was there habitually and 
perpetually during many years, early and late, and as habit- 
ually and perpetually was driven to my own lodging, at mid- 
night, by Count d'Orsay, who had a schoolboy's delight in 
breaking the regulations of St. James's Park, which then ex- 
cluded every one save royal personages from passing after 
midnight. After this, he would go to Crockford's, and play ; 



SYDNEY SMITH. 



99 



but with these matters Lady Blessington had nothing to do, 
beyond the original mistake of harboring so exhausting an 
inmate as he was. This is a digression necessary to that 
which is to lollow. When I heard the scandal retailed as 
above by Sydney Smith — told as a fact by such a just and 
good man, and yet with a condiment of such mirth as makes 
scandal sweeter — I felt that I must speak out. It was 
cruelly hard to do so, but I did get out the real version of the 
story. ' Thank you,' said the old wit to the obscure penny-a- 
liner ; ' thank you for setting me right.' And from that 
time till the day of his death his kindness to me was 
unbroken. 

" Before his death he called in his letters, with a view 
to their destruction ; averse to the misuse which could be 
made, according to the flagrant fashion of our time, of every 
scrap of written paper, by the literary ghouls who fatten their 
purses in the guise of biographers. Before one series of such 
intimate and lively communications was delivered up to him, 
an intimate and a prized friend, to whom they were ad- 
dressed, asked him whether he had any objection to my 
reading them. 'No,' was the answer; 'he is a gentleman.' 
The sanction gives a relish beyond all price to my recollec- 
tion of the exquisite whimsies, the keen appreciation of char- 
acter, and the justice in judgment which these letters 
contained." * 

* In a letter of March, 1845, to his friend in Liverpool, Chorley thus 
refers to the death of Sydney Smith : — " I have been deeply concerned 
by the loss of my kind and indulgent friend, Mr. Sydney Smith. To us 
it makes a void no time will fill up. If not the last, he was the best of 
the wits ; and to myself his kindness and condescension were always 
extraordinary. I used to wonder at his not only sparing, but even some- 
times being willing to seek me ; and it is a sort of fond pleasure, that 
among the last books he read (forgive the vanity !) were my poor Musical 
Journals (" Music and Manners"), saying that he should like to know 
something about the matter. 

L.ofC. 



j 00 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 

Another early-formed and long-enduring intimacy 
of Chorley's was made with Miss Mitford. " It is long," 
he writes, in his journal of May, 1836, soon after their 
first acquaintance, " since I have been so pleased with 
any one, whether for sweetness of voice, kindness and 
cheerfulness of countenance (with one look which 
reminds me of a look I shall meet no more), or high- 
bred plainness of manner. I was fascinated." Their 
friendship was cemented by two or three visits which 
he paid to her cottage at Three Mile Cross, and by 
frequent correspondence. Miss Mitford on her side, 
was not less interested in Chorley, as is shown by her 
frequent admiring and affectionate references to him 
in the first series of her published letters. This series 
was the subject of an article from his pen in the 
" Quarterly Review," (Jan. 1870) ; and one of his last 
literary labors was to edit a second series, with a brief 
memoir prefixed, which attests his feeling for the 
writer. Two or three personal touches therein are evi- 
dently drawn from reminiscences of his visits to Three 
Mile Cross : as, for example, the references made to her 
residence as an " insufficient and meanly-furnished 
laborer's cottage," the poverty of which was forced 
upon her by her father's extravagance, and only relieved 
by her "one luxury — the tiny flower-garden," with its 
geraniums and " the great bay-tree, beneath which so 
many distinguished persons have congregated, to talk 
of matters far above and beyond the petty gossip 
of a country neighborhood, or the private trials and 
sacrifices of their quiet hostess." 

Such letters from her as he has retained — some of 
which might be worth adding to complete the collec- 



LETTER FROM MISS MITFORD. * I0 I 

tion of her published correspondence — evince alike her 
high appreciation of Chorley's literary ability, and the 
reliance she placed upon his judgment in matters of 
every-day concern. Here is one which she wrote to 
him on the subject of a contemplated change of resi- 
dence. It has no date, but must belong to the year 
1842, when his hymn on the Prince of Wales' birth was 
written : — 

"My dear Friend : — 

" I thank you most earnestly for your great kindness. 
Be quite sure that I will do nothing unadvisedly. We shall 
meet, I trust, and then we will talk the matter over ; at all 
events, nothing is decided ; and until Mid-summer, I shall 
not make up my mind any way. There is before a commit- 
tee of the House of Commons a proposition for a railway 
from Reading to Basingstoke. Whatever line is taken, 
whether just in front of my cottage or close behind the gar- 
den, you know enough of the locale to conceive the destruc- 
tion of all prettiness, for the embankment would be higher 
than this house. Then we should lose the coaches and post- 
carts, which, now that I have parted with my pony-chaise, 
are so necessary ; and even if the railway were not to take 
place, the house and garden are too expensive. Under 
these considerations, what is there wonderful in my being 
tempted by a place so cheap and so very beautiful — where 
there is an excellent town, admirable libraries, French and 
English, and fair society ; weather neither hot nor cold ; 
dry winter walks (the dirt here has been frightful !) and a 
climate not more moist than that of the West of England ? 
Very many of my friends have been there, and all speak of 
Jersey (for, on account of the excellence of the town, we 
should prefer that island to Guernsey) — all speak of Jersey 
as a very delightful residence, and, in point of vegetation, 



102 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

something unapproachable in this part of the world. Only 
think of an avenue of blue hydrangeas ten or twelve feet 
high, and large in proportion ! I don't care so much for 
them ; but think, where they so flourish, what may be expect- 
ed from the fuchsias, myrtles, camellias, and geraniums ? Ah ! 
you must come and see me there. I shall live a mile or two 
from St. Heliers, and you may be as retired there as in any 
part of Germany. You know that there is always a better 
chance of seeing you out of England than in. I have had 
for the last six weeks an abominable attack of rheumatism 
in the face, which will prevent my hearing Mr. Hullah's lec- 
ture to-morrow night at Reading — Mr. Risfield having had 
the goodness to offer me tickets. I regret this more as I 
should have liked to hear your beautiful hymn for the Prince 
of Wales. How very beautiful those verses are ! What do 
you think of Mr. Home's book — eh ? How I do want a 
chat with you ! When is the opera to come out ? I see no 
newspapers, so know nothing on the subject. 

" Heaven bless you, my dear friend, 

" Ever faithfully yours, 

"M. Mitford." 

To Miss Mitford's introduction he was indebted 
for some of the most valued of his literary acquaint- 
ances and personal friendships — notably those which 
he formed with John Kenyon, William Harness, the 
family of Charles Kemble, George Darley, Mr. Justice 
Talfourd, Mr. Browning, and, at a somewhat later 
period, with the illustrious poetess who became Mr. 
Browning's wife. The names of George Darley, and 
Mr. Justice Talfourd have already been coupled 
together by Chorley in a passage of his autobiography 
as connected with an untoward incident early in his 
literary career. Had he continued the narrative, he 



LETTER FROM GEORGE BARLEY. io ^ 

would, doubtless, have referred to the friendly relations 
that subsequently existed between himself and both. 
From Darley — to whose remarkable attainments in 
the contrasted spheres of poetry, criticism, and math- 
ematics the world has yet, perhaps, hardly done jus- 
tice — he has preserved two letters, both characteristic 
of the writer, and testifying to his appreciation of a 
kindred spirit in his correspondent. They are undated, 
but belong to the period between 1836 and 1 



" 27, Upper Eaton Street, 
" 16th August. 
" My dear Sir : — 

" Forgive me when I confess that, most ignorantly and 
unjustly thinking you altogether devoted to the popular liter- 
ature of the day, and that little sympathy could, therefore, 
exist between us, I have let pass opportunities for cultivating 
your acquaintance. Miss Mitford, by her letter, has shown 
me how far I was mistaken. My error will be excused, I 
have no doubt, as freely as it is acknowledged. Yours can 
be no common mind, to be in such amity with hers. I regret 
my inability to give you any better proof of my conversion 
than the accompanying little pamphlet of a poem,* printed 
for friends ; but the same encouraging spirit tells me it will 
not be unacceptable. Some friends have complained, nat- 
urally enough, that an incomplete poem is rather unintelligi- 
ble. I have, therefore, written explanatory headings ; and 
may here add what is the general object or mythos of the 
poem : viz., to show the folly of discontent with the natural 
tone of human life. Canto I. attempts to paint the ill-effects 
of over-joy ; Canto II., those of excessive melancholy. Part 
of the latter object remains to be worked out in Canto III., 
which would likewise show — if I could ever find confidence, 

* Entitled " Nepenthe." 



104 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

and health, and leisure to finish it — that contentment with 
the mingled cup of humanity is the true ' Nepenthe.' I 
would call, or ask you to call, but that conversation with me 
is a painful effort, and to others painful and profitless. I 
am an involuntary misanthrope, by reason of an impediment 
which renders society and me burthensome to each other. 
My works, whatever be their merit, are the better part of 
me — the only one I can at all commend to your notice. I 
alone have to regret my state of interdiction. 

" Yours, my dear Sir, 
" With respect and the best impressions 
towards you, 

" George Darley." 

"Thursday. 

" My dear Chorley :— 

"All my best thanks for your kind and careful remarks, 
which shall have my deepest consideration. They are the 
only ones I have ever yet obtained which enable me to turn 
my mind upon itself. Would they had come before I was 
dead in hope, energy and ambition ! If the ' Lammergeyer ' 
now ten years old, be ever published, it will owe to you much 
of any success it may obtain, though I have not the slightest 
belief it will ever take even a 'very low place among our 
select romantic poems.' You are perfectly right about 
' Alboin.' The simple truth is, it was written as a mock- 
heroic tragedy, called ' The Revisal,' by an imaginary mad 
dramatist, with a running prose critique by a manager, in 
which all your opinions of it were given. I, however, thought 
this plan foolish, and put one act into its present form, 
merely as an experiment, because it seemed to contain some 
few good lines. Whenever you please to put me in the chair, 
I promise to be as sincere as you, though not so judicious. 
Being such near neighbors, I think we should try the extent 



LETTER FROM SERGEANT TALFOURD. 



105 



of each other's hospitality. Mine goes as far as a break- 
fast of tea and coffee, two eggs (or an equivalent broil), 
and buttered rolls ad libitum. Will you come Saturday, and 
at what hour? Or shall I put your 'barbarian virtue' to 
the test, as you are upon the first floor ? 

" Ever yours obliged, 

" George Darley." 
" Had you rather have an evening rout ?" 

Of the author of "Ion " Chorley seems to have 
known less than of the critic, for whose severity on 
it he was so unreasonably held responsible. The mis- 
understanding, however, between himself and Talfourd 
on that score was soon rectified ; and to prevent any 
recurrence of it, on the next occasion that a volume 
by so sensitive an author received unfavorable review 
from the " Athenaeum," Chorley, as may be inferred 
from the following letter, took the pains to send him a 
previous disavowal. The absence of a date renders it 
impossible to identify the volume referred to. 

" Court of C. P. 
" Saturday evening. 
" My dear Sir : — 

" I read your note last night with great regret ; not for 
the anticipated article in the ' Athenseum,' but for the pain 
you have suffered entirely without other cause than your 
own sensibility and kindness. I assure you that I should 
have perfectly understood the true state of the case in refer- 
ence to yourself, on a glance at the review ; for it has hap- 
pened to me, when writing dramatic criticisms for the 'New 
Monthly,' not merely to see my friends attacked by the edi- 
tor, but to have my own article of eulogy altered into cen- 
sure. I have just skimmed over the article this morning, 

5* 



I0 6 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

and while I am ready to admit a great deal of it to be very- 
just, I am surprised at a tone of personality, which I am 
afraid must have been excited by some offence I have 
unconsciously given to the writer. I have, however, so 
great an excess of praise to be grateful for in other quarters, 
that I should be inexcusable if I murmured at a censure 
which I may feel in some respects unjust. If disengaged, 
will you look in upon us on Sunday (to-morrow) evening, in 
Russell Square ? You will find Miss Mitford and Mr. Ken- 
yon, and one or two others, who, like myself, only wish to 
know you better. 

" Ever faithfully yours, 

" T. N. Talfourd." 

Another illustrious friendship which Chorley form- 
ed during these years was with the late George Grote. 
How they first became acquainted does not appear, 
but his name occurs in Chorley's journal as early as 
1839, an d the terms upon which they stood with each 
other a year or two later were evidently very intimate. 
Of this eminent man he has left the following notice, 
which worthily attests the value which he set upon 
their intercourse : — * 

" The Historian of Greece, one of the few serious Eng- 
lish men of letters who has made his mark all the world over, 
within the past half century, was for many years indulgently 
kind to me. A more noble-hearted and accomplished gen- 
tleman than he who has departed full of years, and rich in 
honors, I have never seen. When the word ' gentleman ' is 
used, it is with express reference to that courtesy and con- 
sideration of manner, which appears to me dying out of the 
world. Four men that I have known, the late Due de Gra- 



GEORGE GROTE. 



IO/ 



mont, the Duke of Ossuna, the late Duke of Beaufort, and 
Mr. Grote, in their high breeding and deference to women, 
in their instinctive avoidance of any topic or expres- 
sion which could possibly give pain, recur to me as 
unparagoned. But the three men first named had little 
beyond their manner by way of charming or influencing 
society.* Mr. Grote, as a man holding those most advanced 
ideas which were- at war with every aristocratic tradition and 
institution, a man with vigorous purposes, and ample and 
various stores of thought, might well have been allowed to 
dispense with form, and smoothness, and ceremony. But 
he showed how these could be combined with the most utter 
sincerity. If, at times, he was elaborate in conversation, 
with little humor of expression, though not without a sense 
of it in others, he was never overweening. He stands in a 
place of his own, among all the superior men to whom I have 
ever looked up. 

" He was a skeptic, as regards matters of religious faith, 
to the very core. But he was keenly alive to the truth, that 
to force extreme opinions, not called for, on those having 
other convictions, is an abuse of freedom of thought and of 
speech which no large-minded man will permit himself. 
There was neither craft nor cowardice in this reticence. 
Had fortune, or worldly position, or life, depended on his 
falsifying his opinions, he is the last man I have ever known 
who would have done so. His uncompromising constancy 

* " Yet the Spanish grandee could at once evade and rebuke a piece 
of noble English impertinence. Rumor had exaggerated the extent 
of the Duke's fortune and possessions ; but they were notoriously very 
large — for Spain. 1 heard an Earl, whose name should have been a 
warrant for good taste and good breeding, ask him point-blank, ' What 
was the amount of his income ? ' — there being, if I remember rightly, a 
wager at Crockford's to be settled by the answer. ' My lord,' said the 
Duke, with the most imperturbable politeness, ' I do not know your 
English money.' " 



108 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

to his peculiar opinions cost him all influence and support 
in Parliament, and was the cause of his early retirement from 
political life and action. 

"With all his vast stores of knowledge, and his habits of 
universal reading, were combined a taste for Art, and a 
certain amount of practical accomplishment not common 
among scholars so profound and so ripe. He was a lover 
rather than a judge of pictures ; he was an intelligent opera- 
goer, and had made some proficiency in learning to play on 
the violincello. But in everything he undertook, whether 
it was of grave importance or of slighter pastime, his modesty 
was as remarkable as his earnestness and his courtesy. The 
completeness of the scholar and the gentleman strikes me 
more forcibly on retrospect than it did at the time when I 
was frequently in his society. It is fit that he should lie 
among the high-minded and lettered men who have made 
England great among the nations. But even were there no 
stone in the Abbey to hand his merits down for scholars and 
politicians to come to imitate, I am satisfied that his reputa- 
tion will only brighten and deepen as years pass on, and new 
men take up the studies in which his honorable life was 
spent ; and the result of which has already a wide and 
lasting place in the world of letters." 

The only other names (besides Browning's, of whom 
more in future chapters) that can be added to the list 
of Chorley's literary intimacies of this period, are those 
of William and Mary Howitt. They were friends of 
his family, and his acquaintance with them, which had 
preceded his arrival in London, always partook rather 
of a domestic than of a personal character. 

The friendships comprised in this aurea catena were 
for the most part formed and maintained concurrently. 



DEA TH OF FRIENDS. 



IO9 



They, doubtless, varied considerably in degree, but 
none of them equalled in intensity the bond which had 
united him to Mr. Benson Rathbone, nor weakened the 
force of the domestic associations with which that early 
friendship was incorporated. Although necessarily de- 
barred from much intercourse with his family at Liver- 
pool, Chorley's affection for them was undiminished. 
They habitually corresponded, and such intervals of lei- 
sure as he could afford were spent in their circle. Now 
and then he seems to have complained of the imperfect 
sympathy with his interests which was displayed by some 
of its members, principally his brother John, who after- 
wards came to know him better; but with one of them 
at least, his sister, he was in uninterrupted accord, and 
there is often a vein of chivalric tenderness in the 
phrases he employs in connection with her name. Two 
deaths that occurred in these years left a void in his 
own home, and that of another family only less dear 
to him. In October, 1838, he was summoned to the 
death-bed of his uncle, Dr. Rutter, whom he revered 
as a second father; and Mrs. Rathbone, who occupied 
an almost maternal place in his affection, died in the 
following May. By the death of the former his mother 
was left in affluent circumstances, and he became 
entitled to a legacy of 1400/. — an addition to his 
slender means as timely as it was grateful. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Personal and Social Life in London from 1834 to 1841. — Rogers, the 
Poet-Banker. — Lady Morgan. — Miss Landon. — Mrs. Somerville. — 
Visits to Paris. — Parisian Celebrities. — The Duchess d' Abrantes. — 
Paul de Kock. — Alfred de Vigny. — Rachel. — Mdlle Mars. — Prince 
Louis Napoleon. — The Misses Berry. — Southey.— Miss Sedgwick. 

AMONG the remarkable persons moving in Lon- 
don society at the time when Chorley entered 
it ; and whom he met and observed frequently, without 
even knowing intimately, was the poet and banker, 
Rogers. Of him Chorley has left a sketch, which 
though necessarily slight contains some highly charac- 
teristic traits : — 

" I used to meet Rogers frequently at the Grotes', at the 
Kembles', at the Procters' ; and at the first house, in very 
small parties where I had an opportunity of hearing and see- 
ing him closely. Few old men have ever shown a more mor- 
tifying behavior to a young one than Mr. Rogers, from first 
to last, displayed towards me. There was no doubting the 
dislike which he had conceived for me, and which he took 
every possible pains to make me feel. I do not recollect 
ever to have intruded myself on his notice, ever to have inter- 
rupted him in narration (an offence he could not endure). 
In the society where I met him I never talked, for it was a 
delight to listen to Sydney Smith, and to Charles Austin, 
and to Mr. and Mrs. Grote. Perhaps Rogers thought my 



ROGERS, THE POET-BANKER. m 

dress coxcombical, or my mariners affected, (an accusation 
under which I have lain all my life). Perhaps he did not 
forgive me for living as house-mate with a person for whom 
he professed an open antipathy. 

" Whatever the cause might be, he did his best to make 
me feel small and uncomfortable; and it was often done by 
repeating the same discouragement. The scene would be a 
dinner of eight; at which he would say, loud enough to be 
heard, 'Who is that young man with red hair?' (meaning 
me.) The answer would be, ' Mr. Chorley,' et cetera, et cetera. 
' Never heard of him before,' was the rejoinder: after which 
Rogers would turn to his dinner, like one who, having dis- 
posed of a nuisance, might unfold his napkin, and eat his 
soup in peace. 

" It has been fortunate for me all my life that unprovoked 
rudeness of this sort has never had any power over me, has 
never added to a physical nervousness, of itself sufficiently 
disqualifying, nor to a shyness, which I don't think has in- 
cluded moral cowardice. Those to whom I have attached 
myself, and those in whom I have believed, have been able 
to give me any amount of pain. I have been hag-ridden all 
my life by an over-sensitiveness with respect to friends, and 
have suffered from my own jealous and exacting nature, from 
too much yearning for entire confidence and complete regard. 
But slights from acquaintances I have never heeded, more 
than I should heed a random call at my heels in the street. 
And thus the deliberate and avowed antipathy of Mr. Rogers 
(never provoked by want of respect on my part) served 
only to amuse me, as a trait of character, and did not pre- 
vent my profiting, as well as I could, by all that was more 
genial in his nature and manners. It still seems to me a 
doubtful matter which of the two attributes was reality, which 
affectation ; the elegance and sympathy and delicacy he 
could throw into his intercourse with those whom he pro- 



H2 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 

tected, or the acerbity, often displayed and directed without 
any conceivable reason, with which he pursued unaffected 
persons, or denounced everything in literature and art which 
did not suit him. His admiration, in some points showing a 
marvellous foresight, in others, hung so curiously far behind 
his time, as to puzzle all those who are apt to dream that 
liberality should exclude prejudice. As a young man collect- 
ing pictures, he showed an excellent courage in leaving all 
the beaten tracks of connoisseurship, to select, and enjoy, 
and recognize that which he felt to be good. He was one 
of the first in England who recognized ancient Italian paint- 
ing, as having a beauty and an expression totally distinct 
from archaeological value ; not repelled by technical mistakes 
or audacities, provided the work was sincere. But as an old 
poet, who was ever so inhuman and perverse in sitting in 
judgment on the works of young poets as Rogers ? I have 
heard him absolutely venomous and violent (as much as so 
low-voiced a man could be) in dissection, or in wholesale 
abuse, of the verses of Tennyson, Browning, Milnes; and 
end his task of ' perverse industry,' (as Moore has some- 
where happily designated such exhibitions) with such a sigh 
of satisfaction as might befit one to whom the extermination 
of vermin is not a profession, but a pleasure. 

" In music, too, he was no less exclusive, no less vicious 
in reproof, but far more ignorant. How one, who had been 
hearing music for so many years, and who would never keep 
away from any place where it was going on, could have made 
so little progress in taste and knowledge as Rogers, used to 
excite my wonderment. Scott, it is said, used to profess that 
he was totally devoid of musical sense, save such as enabled 
him to bear the burden to Mrs. Lockhart's ballads, or to sing 
after supper (as Moore has told) over the quaigh of whiskey. 
But I cannot but imagine that Rogers, with all his profession, 
was as meagrely gifted by nature as Scott had been, and that 



ROGERS' S BON-MO TS. 1 1 3 

his culture had merely been applied to the fostering of those 
old associative prejudices which, however precious as pleas- 
ures of memory, have nothing to do with the good or ill of 
music. The name of Beethoven used to make him singularly 
active and acrid in epithet : instrumental music, of any kind, 
was ' those fiddlers ; ' though he would lavish gracious com- 
pliments on a Kemble, an Arkwright, or a Grisi, or any 
woman who sung, no matter what, small matter how, 
she sung. It was on the debateable land of music that I 
used to meet Mr. Rogers the most frequently, since he came 
to many houses which I frequented, ostensibly to hear and to 
enjoy music ; and, sometimes, for the sake of getting a name 
or a fact, would even lay by his antipathy and ignorance of 
me, and ask, ' What 7vas going on V or ' whereabouts we were ? ' 

I remember one night in particular, his religiously sitting 
through a fine performance of Beethoven's Mass in C, and 
pertinaciously appealing to me, from movement to move- 
ment, ' Now, is that good? — because I don't know f ' Now 
do you really understand that ? ' 

" The temptation to retort was strong : e What need to 
sit?' — till one recollected the different world into which he 
had been born, the different atmosphere as regards Art, 
which he had breathed ; and admitted that the good of his 
willingness to listen, ought to outweigh the bad of his arro- 
gance, in knocking down all that he could not understand. 

" And very great and very bitter was that arrogance. 
One night Mrs. Sartoris had been singing a canzonet by 

Signor , who had accompanied her. When it was done, 

Rogers made the labor of crossing the room and going up to 
the pianoforte ; 'What was that you have been singing?' 

said he, in his low, clear voice. ' A song of Signor ,' 

was the answer ; ' give me leave to introduce him to you.' 

I I thought it was that man's ! ' was the gracious reply • 
' there' 's no tune in it.' 



H4 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

"I have always considered myself the person to whom 
Rogers made his most gratuitously ill-natured speech, as 
under. It was at the Atitient Concerts, on a night when the 
room was crowded, owing to a royal visit, and when every 
seat was occupied. Mine was at the end of a bench, by the 
side of the Dowager Lady Essex (Miss Stephens that had 
been). She was one of Rogers's prime favorites; even 
though she is in private as in public one of those gracious 
and gentle women against whom no exception can be taken. 
He loved to sit next her, and pay her those elegant and 
courteous compliments, the art of paying which is lost. 
When I saw the old gentleman creeping down the side 
avenue betwixt the benches, at a loss for a seat, I said, 
''Now I shall give up my place to Air. Rogers ; good-night!' 
While I was stooping for my hat, ' Come,' said she, in her 
cordial way, ' come, Mr. Rogers, here is a seat for you by 
me.' ' Thank you,' said the civil old gentleman, fixing his 
dead eyes on me, as I was doing my best to get out of the 
way ; ' thank you ; but I don't like your company? 

" I may tell a companion-story which I heard from the 
younger Westmacott the sculptor, who was rather a favorite 
with Rogers than otherwise. Westmacott had finished a 
bust, I believe, of Lord John Russell, and, being anxious 
that Lord John's friends should pronounce on the likeness, 
invited Mr. Rogers to his studio with that express view. The 
poet, I suppose, came on a bad day, for round and round the 
room he walked, and through and through the labyrinth of 
marbles, slowly andponderingly, passing the bust in a marked 
manner. At last he paused, paused before one of those 
hunches of marble which have only begun to assume human 
semblance, by the drill holes and compass marks with which 
the sculptor's men prepare the block for the sculptor's own 
chisel. Here he stopped and pointed with his finger. ' / 
think] said he, ' thats the best likeness here? 



LADY MORGAN. 



"5 



" Though I have done my best to produce a true picture 
of the humors of the Rogers I saw and met often, let me no 
less earnestly state my belief that the crookedness and the 
incivility of these had nothing to do with his heart and his 
hand, when the one told the other to give. Rogers's hospi- 
tality to poets might be pleasant to himself, and no less so 
his handsome reception of every handsome woman, but for 
the poor, struggling, suffering man of genius, and to the gar- 
ret with its dirt and cold, without any charm, or warmth, or 
Southern picturesque, he was, I believe, a delicate almoner, 
a liberal distributor, and a frequent visitor. Bilious, vicious, 
cruel as he was with his tongue, Rogers was, I know, a kindly 
and indefatigable friend to many humble men, and to a few 
less humble ones ; and at no period of his life, when his 
antipathy to me was the most rancorously expressed, should 
I have feared presenting to him the case of poor painter, 
poor poet, poor musician, or poor governess. Though I 
never did apply to Rogers for aid to others, I am personally 
cognizant of too many acts of munificence quietly done by 
him, and of which no trumpeting was or is possible, not to 
dwell on the good as warmly as I talk about the mischief 
unreservedly." 

Of another celebrity of the same period, the late 
Lady Morgan, Chorley knew somewhat more than 
of Rogers. They used occasionally to correspond, 
and one of her letters to him is subjoined to the follow- 
ing estimate which he has left of her character. 

" One of the most peculiar and original literary charac- 
ters whom I have ever known, was Sydney Lady Morgan, a 
composition of natural genius, acquired accomplishments, 
audacity that flew at the highest game, shrewd thought, and 
research at once intelligent and superficial ; personal coquet- 



1 1 6 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

ries and affectations, balanced by sincere and strenuous fam- 
ily affections ; extreme liberality of opinions, religious and 
political ; extremely narrow literary sympathies, united with 
a delight in all the most tinsel pleasures and indulgences of 
the most inane aristocratic society ; a genial love for Art, 
limited by the most inconceivable prejudices of ignorance ; 
in brief, a compound of the most startling contradictions, 
impossible to be overlooked or forgotten, though possible to 
be described in two ways — both true, yet the one diametri- 
cally opposite to the other. Those whom she exasperated 
by her skepticism and her fearlessness of speech and action, 
could only dwell upon her frivolity and vanity, which were 
patent enough ; those whose tempers were not heated by 
rivalry or antagonism could discern beneath all these fop- 
peries a solidity of conviction, a sincerity of purpose and a 
constancy of regard which could not fail to win appreciation 
of, though they could not always insure respect for their 
owner. Her life, were it thoroughly and truly told, would 
be one of the most singular contributions to the history of 
gifted woman that the world has ever seen. She tried to tell 
it herself, in a fragmentary fashion, from time to time ; but 
the chapters of a strange story, however amusing, were like 
their writer, so made up and rouged for effect as not to have 
taken a permanent place in the library of Female Biographies. 
It may be doubted whether such a woman will be ever seen 
again, since many of her peculiarities were clearly ascribable 
to circumstances of birth and education, which, in our days 
of rapid intercourse and diffused instruction, can hardly be 
reproduced. The efforts of the young to acquire distinction 
must henceforth take other milder forms than they formerly 
wore, must be more speculative, less practical: on the other 
hand, perhaps, the distinction when gained will never be so 
original and direct in its manifestation, nor so racy in its 
expression, in any generation to come. 



LADY MORGAN'S EARLY LIFE. 



117 



" Lady Morgan, when touched too closely on the subject 
of her birth, was used to say, that she was born on the sea, 
betwixt Ireland and England. I have heard her declare in 
one breath that she had created the national Irish novel, 
while in another, with sublime inconsistency, she would 
assert that Miss Edgeworth was a grown woman when she 
was yet a child. Her father, Mr. Macowen (the name for 
gentility's sake legitimately transformed into Owenson) was 
a comic actor of some repute in Ireland, some eighty or a 
hundred years ago. I have always believed that Sydney, his 
daughter, was destined for public exhibition, as she was 
taught to sing, to dance, to recite, and to play on the harp. 
But in none of these accomplishments was she sufficiently 
tutored to make limited natural gifts and personal attrac- 
tions presentable to that hard taskmaster, the Public, with 
any chance of great favor. And the girl early discovered 
that she had within herself better chances of asserting her 
individuality ; a shrewd observation of character, a keen wit, 
a fearless tongue, a resolute desire and curiosity for instruc- 
tion in the ways of the world. Anything but regularly pretty, 
she must at one time have been odd and piquant looking ; in 
this more attractive than many a dull compound of lilies and 
roses. 

" The resolution to get on rarely fails to be its own ful- 
filment. From the moment when she was received into the 
Marquis of Abercorn's family, partly as a governess, partly 
as a household musician, her success in the life she coveted 
and was fittest for, became only a matter of time. She 
danced, she played on the harp ; by her mother-wit she 
amused the inane persons of quality whom, in latter years, 
she delighted so mercilessly to satirise in her novels. But 
all this time she was reading eagerly in a desultory fash- 
ion ; getting some superficial knowledge of French and 
Italian ; if without any very steady purpose, with that instinct 



1 1 8 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

of future success which contains the fulfilment of its own 
prophecy. 

" There is no need to dwell on Lady Morgan's first 
attempts at fiction; 'Ida of ' Athens,' ' The Novice of St. 
Dominick,' ' The Wild Irish Girl,' the last probably the 
least imitative, the one which gave to its writer her own pet 
name of Glorvina, after its heroine. All are as much for- 
gotten as the tale ' St. Irvyne,' by which Shelley began his 
literary career. A collection of Irish Melodies, long pre- 
ceding those of Bunting and Moore, was of better promise. 
One of these, ' Kate Kearney,' still lives in cheap editions 
of popular songs. 

" It is as little my business to offer any judgment here on 
Lady Morgan's National Tales ; neither on her travels in 
France and Italy, her ' Life of Salvator Rosa,' and the most 
serious and best of her works, ' Woman and her Master.' 
Whatever be their real merit, it is past doubt that they 
established for her a brilliant reputation in France and Italy, 
and this expressed in forms which were not calculated to 
give ballast to one of the most feather-brained, restless 
creatures who ever glittered in the world of female author- 
ship. After her first book on ' France' was published she 
became the rage in Paris ; and I have been told, on good 
authority, that on one occasion, at some grand reception, she 
had a raised seat on the dais, only a little lower than that 
provided for the Duchesse de Berri. It is true that she had 
at her side a staid, shrewd, cynical, skeptical companion in 
Sir Charles Morgan, who was weary of bearing a part in 
perpetual glitter, his mind being bent on graver pursuits and 
speculations than hers. A strangely assorted pair they 
seemed to be, on a first glance ; but the one suited the other 
admirably. He did something towards reducing the exuber- 
ances of her vanity, and directing her attention to courses 
of research. That he helped to write her books, as has been 



MORE OF LAD Y MORGAN. i j g 

asserted, I do not believe. Her fame, for it amounted to 
fame, gave him access to circles of society which possibly 
he might never otherwise have entered. Both agreed in the 
expression of the most fearless skepticism (sometimes most 
painfully and needlessly expressed) ; both, like all the 
skeptics I have ever approached, were absurdly prejudiced 
and proof against new impressions. Neither of them, though 
both were literary and musical, could endure German litera- 
ture or music, had got beyond the stale sarcasms of the 
' Anti-Jacobin,' or could admit that there is a glory for such 
men as Weber, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, as well as for 
Cimarosa, Paiesiello, and Rossini. Prejudice such as theirs, 
professing liberalism, is a ' sure card' to play. Party ani- 
mosity is far more amusing than justice, the latter being apt 
to bear the bad name of phlegmatic indifference. He, how- 
ever, anti-pathetic his views might be to many persons, was, 
I have no doubt, thoroughly sincere in them ; she was as 
much so as a spoilt woman of genius, who delighted in being 
thought a woman of fashion, could be. 

" Her familiar conversation was a series of brilliant, 
egotistic, shrewd, genial sallies. She could be caressing or 
impudent, as suited the moment, the purpose in hand, or the 
person she was addressing. At times the generous, hearty 
nature of the Irish-woman broke out, strangely alternating 
with her love of show and finery, and the bitter cynicism she 
showered on all practices and opinions which rebuked her 
own. I recollect her telling how, when she had been de- 
tained at some road-side country inn by an illness of her 
husband's, she sat on the bench beside the door, and treated 
a party of weary country laborers, who were there resting, 
to bread, cheese, and beer, having obviously taken a rich and 
real enjoyment in their homely talk. And the next moment 
she would fly off to some nonsense about dukes and duch- 
esses, royal celebrities, at home and abroad, who had compli- 



120 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

merited her books, her conversation, or her toilette ; for of 
her toilette, which was largely, during her life, made by her 
own hands, she was comically vain without concealment. I 
remember to have heard her describe a party at a Mrs. Leo 
Hunter's, (who received all manner of celebrities at what 
she called ' her morning soirees] without the slightest power 
of appreciating anything but the celebrity) — ' There,' said 
she, ' was Miss Jane Porter, looking like a shabby canoness; 
there was Mrs. Somerville, in an astronomical cap. /dashed 
in, in my blue satin and point-lace, and showed them how an 
authoress should dress." 

" I remember her, at another of those wondrous gather- 
ings, where the crowd was great, and the drawing-room was 
crammed, breaking through a company of men, who had 
perched on an upper staircase, sitting down, and crying out 
aloud, ' Here I am in the midst of my seraglio !' In free- 
dom of speech she proved herself the countrywoman of those 
renowned wits, Lady Norbury and Lady Aldborough; but, 
however free, she never shocked decorum, as they rather 
rejoiced in doing, to have their tales of double entendre carted 
over the town by diners out, who found the second-hand 
indecency answer, as creating ' a sensation.' 

" What a blessing is self-approbation ! In Lady Mor- 
gan's case I am satisfied it was sincere. She had no Statute 
of Limitations, and absolutely professed to have taught 
Taglioni to dance an Irish jig ! How far Taglioni profited 
by the lesson is a secret. 

" Sometimes ' her spirit and vivacity' (as the inimitable 
Lady Strange expressed it) carried Lady Morgan into 
strange lengths of freedom. I once met her in a literary 
menagerie, where, among other guests, figured a large lady, 
but a small authoress, Mrs. Cornwell Baron Wilson. She 
displayed rather protuberantly, below the waist of her black 
dress, a tawdry medal, half the size of a saucer, which had 



PECULIARITIES OF LAD Y MORGAN. I2 J 

been awarded her for some prize poems by some provincial 
Delia Cruscan literary society, probably as tawdry and of as 
little worth as the rhymes it was given to reward. ' My 

! ' said Lady Morgan, using an exclamation more 

irreverent than the reverse, ' only look at Grace Darling ! ' 
(the heroic daughter of the Northern Lighthouse-keeper.) 
' Hush ! hush ! ' said some one or other, ' It is Mrs. Corn- 
well Baron Wilson.' ' Who ? Oh, Mrs. Barry Cornwall.' 
I do not believe that she ever took the trouble to set her 
knowledge right regarding a lady living and moving in her 
own literary world. Yet who could be so sarcastic as her- 
self on the mistakes of others ? 

"I heard her ask, in all sincerity and simplicity, at a 
literary party, ' Who was Jeremy Taylor ? ' on the occasion 
of some reference to that distinguished divine. She may 
have, and I think had, some notion of the Taylors of Qngar ! 
But more absurd still was her introduction to the stately, 
grave, and accomplished Mrs. Sarah Austin, on which occa- 
sion she complimented her sister authoress on having written 
1 Pride and Prejudice.' 

" Her resolution to assemble lions of all sorts and sexes 
was nothing short of dauntless. If a nobody happened to 
get into her circle, she made no scruple to pass him or her 
off as ' the Cleopatra pears' were passed off by my relative. 
I think, could it have helped one of her parties, she would 
have fitted up a ' Grace Darling.' I know of one quiet and 
unobtrusive woman whom she had invited, and subsequently 
thought it necessary to ticket, who overheard how she was 
pointed out by the hostess i as a woman of extraordinary 
genius, who had written — ' Well, the rest did not come 
easily, and so Lady Morgan fluttered off elsewhere, having 
mysteriously accounted for the presence of an anonymous 
guest. 

" Among the guests whom she received in her latter 
6 



122 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

years, when the death of Sir Charles Morgan left her at 
liberty to consult her humors without restraint, was the last 
person whom one could have expected to meet within pre- 
cincts such as hers — Cardinal Wiseman. Not long before 
had she written her pamphlets on St. Peter's chair at Rome, 
aimed at the immaculate immutability of Papal succession ; 
papers controversial, as strong, and caustic, and conclusive, 
as possibly were ever written by a woman, in which she took 
great delight, (for her avowed pleasure in her own works 
was wonderful). I believe his eminence and her eminence 
met on grounds of the most cordial good fellowship. Such 
an encounter tells well for the honest sense and real feeling 
of the conflicting parties. Such encounters, I have often 
had reason to think, are nowhere so frequent as in England. 
" She could be recklessly bitter in regard to other, 
especially other Irish, literary women. Her hatred to Lady 
Blessington had no bounds. In point and quality of author- 
ship no sane person could for an instant think of comparing 
the two ; and the writer of ' Florence Macarthy,' and the 
'Life of Salvator Rosa,' might well have afforded to pass by 
the more colorless works of the lady of Gore House. But 
there Gore House was ; and, in spite of the more austere 
and literary and political attractions of Holland House be- 
yond it, Lady Blessington, by her grace, her sweetness, her 
admirable tact as the leader of society, and her no less 
admirable constancy, contrived, in spite of the most tre- 
mendous social disadvantages, to draw around her such a 
circle of men there, as I fancy will hardly be seen again. 
Lady Holland hated her badly, but, I think, let her -alone ; 
Lady Morgan could not let her alone. I have never heard 
venom', irony, and the implacable and caricatured statement 
of past mistakes heaped Pelion-wise on Ossa, even by woman 
on woman, so mercilessly, as by Lady Morgan in regard to 
Lady Blessington. And the former had the bad taste to 



LADY MORGAN, LA TER IN LIFE. j 2 ^ 

assail the known friends of the latter with perpetual gibings 
and assaults. I have never been able (as other literary men 
can do) to partake of such miserable stories as these with- 
out a feeling of shame and discomfort ; as unable as, I hope, 
unwilling, to spoil society by wrangling, which must merge 
in honest animosity should unprovoked scandals be circu- 
lated. 

" As life passed on, these follies in some measure fell 
away from, or were tempered, in Lady Morgan. She ac- 
cepted what was becoming to advanced years with a grace 
almost amounting to dignity, hardly to have been expected 
from one who had so long defied time, and who found her- 
self almost alone in the world. She became quieter, more 
considerate, very attentive to younger people, and to rising 
talent. She had been spoiled by having had to work her 
way under difficult circumstances into a position which she 
improved into a success. She had been flattered, and was 
more accessible to flattery than ninety-nine out a hundred 
women are. She had the consciousness of having conquered 
a place for herself and her family, which was bright, and, 
to some degree, solid, in the best society of England and 
the Continent. Last and best of all, she had never to be 
appealed or apologized for, as a forlorn woman of genius 
under difficulties. The pension which was granted to her 
in her latter days, and justly, as one who had done her best 
to see after the redress of Irish abuses, had not, I have 
reason to believe, been solicited." 

The following letter was evidently written in reply 
to one wherein Chorley had asked for materials to 
enable him to draw up the biographical sketch of Lady 
Morgan, which was to be included in his "Authors of 
England," referred to in a previous chapter. 



1 24 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE Y. 

" Kildare Street, March 21, 1837. 

" Dear Mr. Chorley : — 

" I seize on a transient gleam of eye-shine to write you a 
few lines on a subject which Sir Charles (in his desire to keep 
all literary purposes and pursuits out of my way), has only 
lately revealed to me, viz., that my l life' is going to be written 
for the edification of the public ! Now, except by divine 
inspiration, no one could write my life but myself ! and I have 
now neither light nor ambition to do so. I have an enormous 
mass of journals and correspondences by me, of twenty-five 
years (from which, by-the-bye, I extracted the ' Book of the 
Boudoir'); the journals full of European events and anec- 
dotes, and many of the letters to and from most of the 
European notabilities of the age, and in three languages ; but 
these all lie hermetically sealed in a great coffer for the 
present: (what would dear- little Colburn give to peep in?) 
They will contain my life and times — should they ever be 
arranged, without adding a line. Prince Puckler Muskau 
came into my boudoir one clay when I was looking over my 
journals, and asked me the title of my MSS. I said, ' Ces 
sont des memoir - es par moi-meme,/wr moi-meme,' and so he 
has announced them in his book of errors ! Now, my dear 
Mr. Chorley, you are an honest as well as a clever man ; I 
take it, therefore, for granted you will see fair play, and keep 
clear of the thousand and one liars or lies which party spirit, 
literary envy, and Prince Calumny have published of me. I 
have some incidents and anecdotes in foreign and other 
journals which I will bring you, and that may be of use to 
you in your biographical sketch, and they are true and amus- 
ing, and I will answer any questions you put to me honestly ; 
but I trust you will not publish anything till our arrival in 
London, which will be about the first week in, or perhaps, 
at furthest, the second, in April. On this subject I beg you 
will write to me immediately. I suppose you have heard that 



LETITIA E. LANDON. 125 

Mr. H. L. Bulwer has jilted us in the affair of the house. 
There never was such a disappointment, or such an ubusiness- 
like transaction. Do you know I think you might render us 
a great service by looking about in your own pretty neighbor- 
hood for apartments for us, until we could look about us for 
ourselves. I should have no objection to old Bowden's Bird- 
Cage for a time. I must release you from deciphering this 
scrawl, which I am writing by guess, and so good day. 

" Sydney Morgan." 

" We are still very uneasy about dear Mr. Dilke : pray 
let us know your own private opinion. Pray write as soon 
as possible. I am not allowed to read or write a line ; this 
horror is perpetrated by stealth. The moment I use my eyes 
the pain and weakness return. Colburn is impatient for my 
work ('Woman and her Master'), but alas ! 

" Will you have the kindness to send the note to Mr. 
Dilke, and to put Mrs. Webster's in the petite poste ? " 

The service requested of him was duly rendered by 
Chorley, and for awhile he and the Morgans were next- 
door neighbors in Stafford Row. Their intercourse 
cooled in later years, as his sketch intimates, but with- 
out involving any actual estrangement ; and with one 
of Lady Morgan's neices — Mrs. Inwood Jones — he 
remained to the last on the most cordial terms. 

Another celebrity of this period with whom Chor- 
ley came in contact, was the ill-starred Miss Landon 
(L. E. L.). Of her original hostility to him, as a 
writer in the journal most successful as a rival to that 
of which she was the chief ornament, mention has 
already been made. A record which he has left of his 
subsequent relations with her, will attest the generos- 



126 REMINISCENCES OF CIIORIEY. 

ity of his disposition, and furnish an example, only too 
rare, of the " amenities" of literary intercourse : — 

"In spite of the miserably low standard of her literary 
morality, Miss Landon (for awhile put forward as Mrs. 
Hemans's rival) was meant for better things. She was in- 
complete, but she was worthy of being completed ; she was 
ignorant, but she was quick, and capable of receiving culture, 
had she been allowed a chance. If she was unrefined, it 
was because she had fallen into the hands of a coarse set 
of men — the Tories of a provincial capital — such as then 
made a noise and a flare in the ' Noctes Ambrosianae ' of 
' Blackwood's Magazine,' second-hand followers of Lockhart 
and Professor Wilson, and Theodore Hook ; the most noisy 
and most reprehensible of whom — and yet one of the clever- 
est — was Dr. Maginn. Not merely did they, at a very 
early period of the girlV career, succeed in bringing her 
name into a coarse repute, from which it never wholly ex- 
tricated itself, but, by the ridiculous exaggeration of such 
natural gifts as she possessed, (no doubt accompanied by 
immediate gain), flattered her into the idea that small 
further cultivation was required by one who could rank with 
a Baillie, a Tighe, a Hemans — if not their superior, at least 
their equal. Further, she was not fortunate in her home 
position, called on to labor incessantly for the support of 
those around her. All this resulted in what may be called 
a bravado in her intercourse with the public, which excited 
immense distaste among those who were not of the coterie 
to which she belonged. 

" As years went on, tke ephemeral success of Miss Lan- 
don's verses subsided : and, indeed, she had rendered her- 
self next to incapable of anything like a sustained effort, 
though some of her smaller lyrics were more earnest and 
more real in their sentiment and sweetness than her earlier 



EST IMA TE OF Z. E. L. AS AN AUTHOR. 



127 



love-tales and ditties had been. There was amendment, 
too, in her versification. She attempted drama, in the 
tragedy, I think, of f Castruccio Castrucani,' but without the 
smallest success. She wrote a volume of sacred verse, 
which was sentimental rather than serious. She took 
Annuals in hand, but the result was the same, and it must 
have been felt so by herself. At last she began to write 
imaginative prose ; and the coterie who supported her blew 
the trumpet before her first novel, ' Romance and Reality,' 
as no one would do now-a-days were a new Dickens, or a 
new Bulwer, on the threshold. But she held out bravely ; 
wearing out life, and health, and hope, as all who work on 
ground which is not solid must do ; bravely holding up 
those who looked to her for position and subsistence in life, 
and keeping up before such of the friends she retained, and 
such of the society as she mixed in sparingly, those hectic, 
hysterical high-spirits, which are even more depressing to 
meet than'any melancholy. There was a certain audacious 
brightness in her talk; but it was only false glitter, not real 
brilliancy • it was smart, not sound. 

" The truth of Miss Landon's story and her situation had 
for some time oozed out ; it was felt that her literary reputa- 
tion had been exaggerated ; that her social position was, so 
to say, not the pleasantest in the world. Those who had, in 
some measure, compromised her, were in no case to assist 
her ; those who had stood aside, had become aware of the 
deep and real struggle and sorrow which had darkened her 
whole life, from its youth upwards, and the many, many 
pleas for forbearance implied in such knowledge. 

* " There came a time for the recognition of these. A 
relative of hers was proposed to fill an office, in the giving 
away of which literary men had some words to say. And 
he was unimpeachably eligible. He had, rested on her sup- 
port. It was right that her devotion to her own family 



I2 8 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

should not be allowed to drag her down ; that her literary 
industry should be recognized — especially now, when it was 
failing of its reward. It was felt among some of us, that, 
in this matter, there was a claim to be upheld. I had to 
see her on the subject. It was, for both of us, an awkward 
visit. She received me with an air of astonishment and 
bravado, talking with a rapid and unrefined frivolity, the 
tone and taste of which were most distasteful, and the flow 
difficult to interrupt. When, at last, I was allowed to 
explain my errand, the change was instant and painful. 
She burst into a flood of hysterical tears. ' Oh ! ' she cried, 
'you don't know the ill-natured things I have written about 
you ! ' From that time I saw her occasionally, and am satis- 
fied of the sincerity of her feelings. Then, I came to per- 
ceive how much of what was good and real in her nature 
had been strangled and poisoned by the self-interested 
thoughtlessness of those who should have shielded her. 
Some growing conviction of this it was, I have always 
thought, which drove her into a desire for escape, and this 
into her marriage. It seemed next to impossible that the 
husband she chose could have anything in common with her. 
Her melancholy death (curiously foreshadowed in her 
' Ethel Churchill '), painfully sudden as it was, may have 
delivered her from heart-ache and weariness to come. But 
her ill-fortune pursued her after the catastrophe at Cape 
Coast Castle, caused by her mistake of one medicine for 
another. It would be worse than fruitless to rake up the 
scandals to which this gave rise, and which had their usual 
complement of malicious listeners. ' Very sorrrowful,' says 
the author, 'is the life of a woman ;' but of all the lives of 
literary women which I have studied that of L. E. L. seems 
to me the most sorrowful." * 

* A kindly notice of Mrs. Maclean — written on the announcement 
of her death, in the " Athenaeum" of Jan. 5, 1839, was by Chorley's hand. 



MRS. SOMERVILLE. 



I29 



With another woman of letters, less popular in her 
own generation than any of the above-named, but 
whose intellectual rank was as much higher as her 
fame is certain to be more enduring — the late Mrs. 
Somerville — Chorley was on friendly terms during the 
period of her residence in England. Writing of the 
family, in January, 1836, to his correspondent in Liver- 
pool, he says : " The Somervilles I like very much. 
She is quite the pattern of what a literary woman 
should be, with a cheerful and conversable simplicity 
of manner that would be rather remarkable in any 
common person — how much more in so distinguished 
a star-gazer ! " Their vocations in life were too widely 
asunder to bring them much into correspondence ; 
and, with the exception of an occasional note, he has 
preserved no memorial of her that can be added to 
this reference. 

During the autumns of 1836, 1837, an< ^ 1839, ne 
enlarged his acquaintance with contemporary notabili- 
ties, both literary and social, by two visits, partly pro- 
fessional and partly recreative, which he paid to Paris. 
Such additions as he thereby made to his fund of 
musical treasures and critical experience, may be 
reserved for notice in a subsequent chapter. The 
raptures of surprise and enjoyment which a first visit 
to the metropolis of pleasure invariably excites in the 
young, are too familiar to bear repetition ; * and the 

* Chorley's enthusiasm, warm as it was, did not check the critical 
tendency which was habitual to him. There is a cynical fancy in this 
observation upon the position of the cemetery at Pere-la-Chaise. " The 
view thence over Paris is superb. Was the site of this cemetery chosen 
with the same view that made the Indian be buried on the summit of a 
high hill that overlooked his favorite hunting-ground?" 
6* 



130 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 



extracts from his minutely detailed journals will be 
confined to such particulars as offer features of novel, 
or rather historical, interest. 

Among the pleasantest acquaintance whom he 
made on his first, and improved on his second, visit, 
were the family of the late Due de Gramont, whose 
Duchess was the sister of his friend Count d'Orsay. 
They were then living in comparative seclusion at 
Versailles ; their strong Legitimist sympathies forbid- 
ding them to appear at the court of the parvenu mon- 
arch (as they called him) who then filled the throne of 
France. The chivalrous courtesy and high-breeding 
of the whole family greatly impressed Chorley ; and 
he dilates with the enthusiasm of an artist on the 
gratification he had received from a visit to the Cha- 
teau of Versailles, in company with the Duke and 
Duchess, whose traditional tastes and memories were 
so closely intertwined with its history and relics. One 
little outburst of characteristic spleen to which the 
Duchess gave vent at the spectacle of the new regime 
that had displaced the old, is worth chronicling. The 
Gallery of Louis Quatorze — among the most splendid 
apartments of the Chateau — had been recently 
restored by Louis Philippe, who had added some can- 
delabra to the furniture. " Voila," said my charming 
conductress, in a low voice full of woman's feeling ; 
11 c est tout papier-mac lie. Aujourd' hid nous avons un 
roi de papier- mac lie ! " 

A strong contrast to this home of Legitimist no- 
blesse ^2.^ that of the widow of one of Napoleon's Mar- 
shals, Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantes, to whom he 
was introduced by his old acquaintance, La Guiccioli. 



PARISIAN CEIEBRITIES. 



131 



" I cannot describe," he says, " how I was repelled by 
this woman. Ugly, stout, coarse, mannish, with a hoarse 

voice and loud grimacing laugh La Guiccioli 

told me that she takes inconceivable quantities of lauda- 
num — and she carries it in her face. Madame Ancelot was 
there, the authoress of ' Marie,' a Count de la Bayere, and 
many other people. The ladies in a demi-toilette, which it 
would take some time to familiarize to my English eye ; the 
men, ill-looking, ill-dressed, and, it seemed to me, impolite 
as well as vociferous. What I heard of the talk was not 
worth hearing ; in short, to retain my respect for the society 
of the Empire, I must hope and believe that I stumbled upon 
an unusually unhappy specimen of the doings in the 
Chaussee d'Antin." 

Passing over with a mere allusion his meetings 
with persons of less note, such as Madame la Baronne 
Cuvier, Lord and Lady Canterbury — with whom he 
dined, and met Lord Lyndhurst — the Prince de Mos- 
kowa (Ney), and the Prince Belgiojoso (remarkable 
for his musical gifts), Chorley's account of his making 
acquaintance with two of the leading French littera- 
teurs of the period, Paul de Kock and Alfred de 
Vigny is highly interesting. In the . course of his sec- 
ond visit to Paris, having left a note of introduction 
at de Kock's house, in the Boulevard St. Martin, the 
call was shortly afterwards returned : — 

" I opened the door, and there stood a short, middle- 
aged man, with a very prepossessing countenance, but intel- 
ligent and melancholy rather than gay, very thin and longish 
black hair (he is, indeed, all but bald) — a fine forehead, and 
mild, but observant eyes. He was dressed in a black pelisse, 



132 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

faced and cuffed with plush. 'Je suis Paul de Kock.' I 
was thoroughly glad to see him, and welcomed him my best 
in my bad French ; told him of the pleasure I had received 
from his writings, and we had some pleasant talk. His 
character seems to me true to the feeling, and simplicity, and 
shrewdness of his novels. I have yet to find whether it be 
true to those looser parts which (pity on them !) make so 
beautiful a series a sealed book to English readers in gen- 
eral. But, as he spoke with affection of a son ten years old 
(who plays the piano very well), I will believe him to be a 
good father at all events. He referred modestly to his 
books, disclaimed the praise usually given to him as a writer 
merely humorous, and seemed pleased and touched by my 
assuring him (which I could honestly do) that I found some- 
thing in them far beyond the emptiness of mirth, and 
instanced the " Frere Jacques," and the last scenes of " Le 
Bon Enfant." He asked me whether I had read them in 
translation. I said, No : that I thought his humor untrans- 
lateable ; and he seemed also much pleased. We spoke of 
Victor Hugo, whom we agreed in placing at the head of his 
school ; of George Sand, whom we equally agreed in regard- 
ing as a hermaphrodite — a ' genie 7nalade > . . . He spoke of 
Count d'Orsay, till tears came into his eyes, and asked me 
whether he was [still] a Frenchman! He spoke of his own 
manner of life pleasantly and well. He has a little cabin or 
cottage in the country, and there he goes pour se distraire ; 
is his own mason, his own joiner; and, truly enough, said 
that a literary man has, beyond all his fellows, need of pur- 
suits and occupations in which the mind can pleasantly 
unbend itself, and wander away from its fevers or its 
researches. He spoke strongly, but not with bitterness, of 
his critics. 'They disliked him,' he said, ' because he 
belonged to no coterie, and would not do service for service.' 
How I admired this ! And he said that they called him the 



MADAME DE KOCK. 



'33 



author of cooks, porters, and scullions. ' Well,' he said, 
' I console myself, and could silence them if I liked, by say- 
ing that I am content, so long as these people don't begin to 
admire the monsters and prodigies of human nature.' But 
he seemed to feel to the full the comfort of knowing that no 
enemies or evil speakers can hinder that which is written to 
the heart of a people finding its answer there. He also 
spoke of the care and attention which his theatrical engage- 
ments required, as a reason for his not leaving Paris often, 
or to any great distance ; and we parted, I full of the most 
agreeable impressions. I have never seen a literary man, 
whom I should better wish to have written works I am fond 
of studying as models than M. Paul de Kock." 

Some days afterwards Chorley called upon his new 
acquaintance. 

" I found him from home ; but Madame de Kock, from 
an inner room, invited me to go in, and I am not sorry to 
have accepted the invitation, though, I hope, from something 
better than curiosity to see a literary man's menage in Paris. 
First, the room was small and low, an entresol, I think, with 
a parquet, and no carpet ; a tea-table set out in the midst ; a 
cottage-piano in one corner, and beside it a chair full of 
music ; on the wall, opposite the fire-place, a portrait of M. 
de Kock's brother, whom Madame de Kock, if I remember 
right, spoke of as being connected with the Dutch Govern- 
ment ; and an inner cabinet, shelved with books, where, I 
suppose, he sits to write. Madame de Kock was busy 
doing lace-work ; a very little woman, itn peu deshabill'ee peut 
ttre ; and though with, perhaps, not much of the grand lady 
in her abord, full of true and honest pride in her husband, 
speaking of his simple tastes with great pleasure ; how fond 
he is of children, how much he hates money transactions 



134 



REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 



with his publishers ; that she is always obliged to be the man 
of business ; and how thoroughly he is fond of the quiet 
habits which have retained him a tenant of his modest 
menage (against her will) for nineteen years. She spoke of 
his unwillingness to quit Paris, even for a visit to his brother, 
whose portrait I saw ; and we were getting on very pleasantly, 
when he entered. The more I see, the better I like him. 
He talked very interestingly of Paris, of the life of the peo- 
ple on the Boulevards and beyond the barriers, which he 
recommended me to see, and of the pleasantness of his sit- 
uation of residence. I said, Yes, but that I was sure I never 
could work if I had a house on the Boulevards. ' Well,' said 
he, 'I find physiognomies and figures, above all, costumes 
and groups in the streets, which are to me invaluable. 5 
He then charged me with a book for M. le Comte d'Orsay, 
and on my begging permission to read it on the way, said he 
would give me one for myself. It is ' Gustave ; ' but why I 
note this is, as a trait, that the book bears as a title-page an 
illustration, which I shall tear out ere I bind this ; and I am 
sure that neither he nor she (whether from greater honesty 
of mind — whether from the lower tone of national taste, as 
regards the gross and the sufferable) found anything strange, 
or wrong, or objectionable. In England no author would 
have printed a book with such a picture — not even Byron. 
.... And yet, if I have any skill, this French novelist is 
twice the worth of Byron as a husband, a father, and a friend. 
It is odd to make these distinctions." 

It was in his third visit to Paris (paid in 1839) tnat 
Chorley made the acquaintance of Alfred de Vigny, 
whom, he found " exceedingly pleasant, conversable, 
tender, and friendly — perhaps in too pale a tone for a 
man. But what right have I" (he adds in a parenthe- 
sis), "who have all my life been laughed at for like 



RACHEL. 



135 



paleness, to object to this?" Their conversation 
chiefly turned upon French drama ; one of de Vigny's 
remarks on which, Chorley notes as chiming in with 
his own preconceptions, viz., " that the Oromanes 
and Coriolanus of Corneille and Voltaire were zvords 
not characters, as distinguished from the beings of 
Shakespeare." On another occasion they talked of 
Moliere whom de Vigny defended " against the 
charge of want of enthusiasm and passion sometimes 
brought against him ; averring that the passion of ' Le 
Misanthrope' was none the less passion for its being 
hooped, petticoated, and wigged." In de Vigny's 
company Chorley went, for the first time, to see 
Rachel's performance in Voltaire's " Tancrede." 
Though very much struck with the remarkable force 
and emphasis of her declamation, and the propriety of 
her by-play, he thought her deficient in action, and her 
attitudes too constantly in ordonnance, as though the 
pose, having been once found effective, was repeated 
whenever invention fell short. Her acting on a subse- 
quent occasion as Camille, in Corneille's " Horace," 
materially altered his estimate of her. 

" It is a great triumph, and I am converted to her. . . . 
In that wonderful scene with the soldier she was sublime : 
the quivering play of her hands, every fibre listening and 
yielding and struggling with despair, as one'who would deal 
with it herself, and let it have its way with others ; the sink- 
ing form, the horror-stricken countenance, were all in the 
best style of art ; to me finer and more affecting than her 
tremendous taunts to her brother, every word of which was 
a heart-string broken, and a drop of heart's blood shed 
against him, to pile on his head the mountain of her curse." 



136 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



On another occasion he was present at a perform- 
ance by the great actress Mars, then in the golden 
sunset of her powers and fame. 

" The piece was ' Marie.' To be sure, in the epoch of 
girlhood her physical powers would not second her concep- 
tion ; but as the young wife of the financier, all dressed out 
in diamonds and flowers, and trying to smother an old pas- 
sion under the semblance of gaiety and worldliness, she was 
admirable. One speech, the great speech wherein, on her 
old lover reproaching her with coldness, she turns and tells 
him of the agonies she has endured, the death that is in her 
heart, was more the language of anguish than anything I 
ever heard. Then what could exceed her acting in the last 
act, when, having thought all her trials were on the point of 
being rewarded, and looking forward to the future with a 
calm happiness, not so wholly meditative, as to show that all 
capacity for enjoyment is dead within her, she finds that her 
lover has transferred his affections — to her daughter ! That 
charming, exquisite, girlish little Anais in the part of the 
daughter ! with a beauty, a freshness, and a bird-like gaiety ! 
No : we have nothing like it in England ! " 

On returning from Paris, after his second visit, in 
the winter of 1837, Chorley courteously undertook 
the escort of a lady known to him as the mother of 
an old acquaintance, Mr. Henry Reeve, distinguished 
in official life as registrar of the Privy Council, and in 
literature as editor of the " Edinburgh Review," and 
the translator of " De Tocqueville." Early in the 
following year, his acquaintance with Mr. Reeve having 
ripened into friendship, they entered into an arrange- 
ment to keep house together. They took some 



LO UIS NAPOLEON BONAPAR TE. i^y 

" luxuriously comfortable lodgings," as Chorley de- 
scribes them, in Chapel Street, Grosvenor Place, where 
their bachelor-partnership continued until Mr. Reeve's 
marriage in December, i84:i. During these years 
Chorley mixed a good deal in London society, and, in 
company with his " house-mate," entertained freely. 
The reunions which they gathered, thanks to Mr. 
Reeve's extensive acquaintance, were more than ordi- 
narily brilliant ; and the musical part of the entertain- 
ment was always of the highest excellence, owing to 
Chorley's intimacy with the musical world. Mendels- 
sohn, Moscheles, Liszt, Ernst, David, Batta, and almost 
all the great instrumentalists of the day performed 
there at various times. Among the guests whose 
names Chorley has recorded were Mr. Carlyle, Mr. and 
Mrs. Procter, Mr. Kenyon, Mr. and Mrs. Somerville, 
Mr. and Mrs. Basil Montagu, Harness, Poley the 
German Orientalist, Count Montalembert, M. Rio, 
Westmacott, Doyle (H. B.), Mr. Milnes (Lord Hough- 
ton), Mr. and Mrs. Austin, Mrs. Jameson, Miss Mar- 
tineau, and Miss Sedgwick, the American authoress. 
A visit of some duration was paid to them by M.Leon 
Faucher, the eminent Parisian journalist, and his wife, 
at the time of Her Majesty's coronation. 

Of a curious incident that occurred during the 
period of his housekeeping with Mr. Reeve, in con- 
nection with an episode in a chequered career which 
has but lately closed, Chorley has left a brief reminis- 
cence. The late Emperor of the French, then Prince 
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, was at that time residing 
in England, after the failure of his expedition to 
Strasburg. 



I38 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

" He was content," as Chorley says of him, " to figure as 
a lion in the circles of the Mrs. Leon Hunters of his time, 
who cared not what manner of curiosities they drew to- 
gether, patriots, poets, military men, barristers, acquitted 
criminals, most of all, political refugees, or, as a friend of 
mine once humorously described them, * Charity Poles.' " 

In these circles, and as a frequent guest at Gore 
House, Chorley had made his acquaintance, and enter- 
tained a different opinion of his abilities from that 
formed by many other more superficial observers, who 
regarded his taciturnity as an evidence of stupidity. 

" He used to drive me frequently from Kensington to 
Hyde Park Corner, when we left Gore House, and would 
make shrewd remarks, and ask searching questions about 
subjects concerning which he desired to have information. 

. . . Mr. Reeve — whose keen interest and close parti- 
cipation in matters concerning foreign politics is no secret — 
was then in constant relation with M. Guizot, the French 
ambassador in London. ... It was on the Saturday 
before the Prince's attempt was made at Boulogne, that my 
house-mate, before going out for the day, left with me a note 
to be taken by our joint servant to the French embassy in 
Manchester Square. The servant aforesaid, Jonathan . . 

. . was a rough talkative man, not a little vain .... 
of the notoriety of some among our habitual guests. While 
1 was dressing for dinner, he began to tell me that, during 
his evening rounds, he had seen in the Mall in St. James's 
Park two carriages duly appointed, and to them came alone 
Vrom 'Carlton Gardens, where Prince Louis was then resid- 
ing, himself, his faithful friend, Count Persigny, and one or 
two other gentlemen. Jonathan had stayed to gossip with 
some of the servants, to whom he was well known, and 



A STORY WITH A MORAL. 



139 



brought, on their authority, the news that Prince Louis 
' was going to France to kick up a row.' Treating the 
matter (who would not have done so ?) as a piece of pure 
fiction, and averse to anything like scandal proceeding from 
our house, especially in the case of one so delicately circum- 
stanced as Prince Louis, I spoke angrily to the man, and 
charged him on no account to repeat the absurd tale, least 
of all at the French embassy, to which he was going that 
same evening with a note from Reeve. This he promised 
to do, and kept his promise. My dinner that day was at 
Gore House, tete-d-tete with Lady Blessington. When we 
were alone at dessert, our talk ran on English servants, and 
the liberties too frequently taken by them with the names of 
their masters and their masters' riends. I mentioned what 
had passed at home, as an instance. She treated the tale 
as I had done. ' Why,' she said, ' J drove down to Carlton 
Gardens only yesterday to leave a parcel there, which Prince 
Louis had undertaken to send for me to Paris by Prince 
Baiocchi ; he came out and spoke to me.' We passed on 
to something else. When I went home, I told the thing to 
Reeve, as a good story. After I had left Gore House, Lady 
Blessington told the same to Count d'Orsay, who got home 
late, also as an absurdity. Reeve went, according to his 
note, to breakfast with M. Guizot on the Sunday morning, 
and, of course, did not trouble the grave man in office with 
such a piece of nonsense. Monday passed, and Tuesday ; 
on Wednesday afternoon late, some one rode up to the 
carriage of Lady Blessington, who was driving in the park, 
open-mouthed with the news of the attempt at Boulogne, 
and the arrest of the pretender to the French throne. 
' Good God ! to be sure,' she cried, in her eager way, ' I 
know all about it ; Chorley told me on Saturday ! ' 

" I have often speculated on the ' ifs' and ' ands' which 
might have happened, had we all four not disregarded the 



I 4 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

affair as a preposterous tale, and had M. Guizot been 
apprised on the Sunday morning. There have been days in 
which we might have been all accused, and with a fair show 
of circumstantial evidence, of complicity in the treason. 

u During the time when Prince Louis was imprisoned in 
Ham, by the failure of his attempt, covered with ridicule, I 
was in occasional communication with him, with the view of 
beguiling his hours of captivity, and heard of him constantly 
— from him, more than once. When his ' Idees Napoleon- 
iennes,' written in his dungeon, were to be published by Col- 
burn, I was invited, with his concurrence, to translate the 
book into English ; and a set of proofs, corrected by him- 
self, was sent me. I did not accept the task, mainly because 
I have never put my hand to a task of the kind, without some 
special knowledge of that which I professed to handle. For 
the same reason, whatever have been my prejudices or pre- 
dilections, on yet stronger grounds, I would never take ser- 
vice as a political journalist; such subjects are too grave 
ones to be undertaken merely as the means of gaining a 
livelihood. Whether right or wrong, I kept the proofs of 
the book by me for a long time, and was very near being 
brought into trouble by them, as under. 

" I was going into France, before the Prince escaped 
from Ham, and while making the hasty provisions for my 
journey, totally overlooked the fact that my writing-book 
contained some of the sheets of this perilous production, 
annotated by the writer. Fortunately, the douanier at Calais 
knew my face, and did not open my bundle of travelling 
wares. I destroyed the proofs, not conceiving that one day 
they might become a literary curiosity, no matter what was 
the intrinsic poorness of the work. 

" When Prince Louis made his escape from Ham, I was 
one of the first persons whom he called on ; and it seems as 
if it were but yesterday that he told me, from one of my 



THE MISS BERR VS. 



HI 



easy-chairs, the particulars of the manner of his deliverance, 
too well-known to the world for the tale to be told again 
here. To the last days of his residence in England, he con- 
tinued to show a recollection of the very trifling services I 
could render him, such as has not been the rule with others 
on an equality with myself, to whom chance has enabled me 
to give important assistance at critical junctures of their 
lives." 

This chapter must conclude with a few brief 
notices of other lions of London society whom Chor- 
ley was so fortunate as to meet during these years. 
Under date of 15th March, 1838, he chronicles his 
meeting, at a soiree given by Miss Martineau, with 
the two Misses Berry : — 

"Horace Walpole's Miss Berrys. What luck to have 
met with them ! They are more like one's notion of ancient 
Frenchwomen than anything I have ever seen ; rouged, with 
the remains of some beauty, managing large fans like the 
Flirtillas, etc., etc. of Ranelagh, and besetting Macready 
.... about the womanly proprieties of the character of 
Pauline in the 'Lady of Lyons,' till one thought of the 
Critique de VEcole des Femtnes. It is not often that I have 
heard anything so brilliant and amusing." 

Of these ladies, " women of the world, women of 
refinement, women of literary dilettantism," as they 
were, " one of whom made a good appearance in au- 
thorship by her ' Comparative View of English and 
French Society during the Revolution' — who kept 
open house in London, frequented by the choicest 
literary people, during some thirty years," — he re- 
counts a singular instance of literary ignorance : 



142 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

"When that most charming of modern antique books, 
Landor's ' Pericles and Aspasia,' appeared, subsequently to 
his 'Gebir,' his 'Imaginary Conversations,' and even (I 
think) his ' Examination of Shakespeare,' on his name being 
passed round in their circle by some enterprising guest, 
Miss Berry said—' Mr. Landor ? What has he written ? ' 

" A few days after this meeting, he was asked to break- 
fast at Mr. Kenyon's, to meet Dr. Southey, and Mr. Tick- 
nor, of Boston, who seemed a gentleman and a man of 
letters at once. I never met any literary man who so 
thoroughly answered my expectations as Southey. His face 
is at once shrewd, thoughtful, and quick, if not irritable, in 
its expression ; a singular deficiency of space in its lower 
portion, but no deficiency of feature or expression; his 
manner cold, but still ; in conversation, bland and gentle, 
and not nearly so dogmatic as his writings would lead one 
to imagine. Talking, and talking well, a good deal about 
America. . . . He was speaking of Miss Martineau 
patiently, but without respect, describing her as ' talking 
more glibly than any woman he had ever seen, and with 
such a notion of her own infallibility.' I was more agree- 
ably impressed by Southey than I have, for a long time, 
been by any stranger." 

On another occasion he dined at the Dilkes' to 
meet Hood — "as quaint, as lazy, as deaf as ever; but 
always one of the most original people in his drolleries 
I ever met. There is a certain indescribable oddity 
that amuses me more than I can well express. Gen- 
erally, funny people are detestable." Among the 
lions of this calibre, whom he seems to have specially 
disliked, was the late James Smith, one of the authors 
of the " Rejected Addresses ;" chiefly, perhaps, on 
account of "his Garrick Club talk," and the trick of 



MISS CATHARINE SEDGWICK. 



1 43 



" whistling the airs of his odious comic songs" during 
a theatrical performance. He was not more favorably 
impressed by Haynes Bayly, whom, with his wife, he 
met at a fancy ball, in the summer of 1838. There is 
a ludicrous vraisemblance about his sketch of their 
appearance : " Till I saw them, I never understood 
the full force of the reproach of Bath fashion ; tawdry, 
airy, sentimental, vulgar ; he with a pen-and-red-ink 
complexion, and a hyacinthine Romeo wig, dancing, 
and behaving prettily to all the little girls in the 
room ; she in an old French dress, rouged, fade, hag- 
gard : what a pair of shabby old butterflies ! " 

Miss Sedgwick, the American authoress, who 
visited England in 1839, met with a more flattering 
portrait from his pen : — 

" She is decidedly the pleasantest American woman I 
have ever seen, with more of a turn for humor, and less 
American sectarianism. The twang, to be sure, there is in 
plenty ; and the toilette is the dowdiness (not the finery) 
of the backwoods ; but then she is lively, kind, heart-warm ; 
and I feel, somehow or other, almost on friendly terms with 
her, though I never spoke more than twenty consecutive 
words to her." 

These candid, and often caustic, sketches of char- 
acter and manners, it must be remembered, are 
extracts from a journal of which the publication was 
never contemplated ; nor should this now be given to 
them, if any to whom they might occasion pain were 
presumed to be living. Chorley himself was far too 
kindly and sensitive to have perpetrated what he was 
the first to reprobate in others, the impertinence and 



144 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

cruelty of literary vivisection. In a letter to his 
Liverpool correspondent, dated August 1st, 1841, he 
thus notices a recent breach of this canon of good 
taste, by the lady who had produced so agreeable an 
impression upon him when they met a year or two 
before : — 

" Miss Sedgwick* has been returning the compliment of 
all English journalists, by putting us all round on paper, to 
a degree which is too bad. She asked, it seems, poor dear 
Miss Mitford's servants what wages they received, and the 
like ; and, I hear, has written that which is likely most sadly 
to compromise some of the Italian refugees in America, who 
were negotiating with the Austrian Government for a restora- 
tion to their families. I liked her so well in private, as an 
honest-minded, simple-mannered, cultivated woman, that I 
am really more vexed than there is any occasion for. I fear 
the next cage of Transatlantic birds will not run much 
chance of being very liberally dinnered and soireed here ; 
only everything passes off like a nine-days' wonder ! " 
* In a volume of " Letters." 



CHAPTER VII. 

Professional experiences as a Musical Critic between 1834 and 1841. — 
Original gifts and acquirements. — Persistence of principle. — Devel- 
opment of taste. — Illustrative Extracts from journals. — Visits to 
France in 1836, 1837, and 1839 — Interview with Chopin. — Acquaint- 
ance with systems of Wilhem and Mainzer. — National singing- 
schools in England. — Tours in Gei-many, 1839, 1840, 1841. — 
Intimacy with, and letters from, Mendelsshon. — Journey in 
company with him and Moscheles. — Stay at Leipsic. — Anecdotes 
of Mendelsshon. — Schumann. — Sonnet to Mendelssohn's son. — 
Subsequent letters. — Publication of " Music and Manners," etc. 

TO eulogize an art-journalist of our own day for 
conspicuous integrity in the exercise of his calling, 
might seem to " damn him with faint praise," or cast 
an undeserved slur upon the general body of the pro- 
fession. But it would be an affectation to assume that 
thirty or forty years ago the critical press, of either 
England or the Continent, occupied the same honora- 
ble position in public estimation that it occupies now, 
or to ignore the discredit of venality and sycophancy 
which then attached to organs of wide circulation and 
influence. 

More than one scene in which Chorley was an 
actor furnishes proof that, on the score of uprightness 
and clean-handedness, his professional career was suf- 
ficiently exceptional to justify special comment. No 
stress can be laid upon ordinary instances of solicita- 
tion. Every journalist, whose verdict is worth a bribe, 
7 



I46 REMINISCENCES OF C HOE LEY. 

has doubtless been insulted by attempts, more or less 
transparent, to influence his judgment in a given 
direction. In the majority of cases, such attempts are 
made by ignorant and ill-bred persons on behalf of 
themselves or their friends ; and nothing more can 
fairly be inferred than the folly or baseness of the 
individuals concerned. Chorley has noted two or 
three such instances in his experience, which are hardly 
worthy of insertion here, because, however curious in 
themselves, they are insufficient to warrant a general 
inference. But the following illustration has a far 
wider bearing. The individual concerned was a for- 
eign composer of eminent genius and reputation, to 
w r hose works Chorley had long rendered his tribute of 
admiration, as spontaneous as it was well-merited, but 
whom he had never met. On the first occasion of the 
maestro s coming to England, writes Chorley, in his 
narrative of the incident : — 

" I paid him a visit, anxious to offer him such attention 
as lay in my power, by way of testifying my gratitude in 
private, as I had again and again done in print, for the rare 
pleasure he had afforded me. In a few days my visit was 
returned with every sign of courtesy. But when my caller 
rose to take his leave, I perceived a certain unmistakeable 
thing — a rouleau — drawn from his pocket, and within an 
inch of my table. There was nothing to do but to close his 
hand over it, with a gesture towards the place from which it 
had been extracted. I see, while I write, his look of un- 
feigned astonishment as I said (to avoid misunderstanding), 
' It is not our English habit.' What makes the matter more 
curious still, is that some years later I heard the story [of 
my refusing this offer] told in Paris in a company of artists 



CHORLEY'S Hl.GH-MINDEDNESS. 147 

as something peculiar — no person being aware that one of 
the two parties concerned was present." 

It is inconceivable that a man of such intellectual 
rank and good breeding, as the composer in question, 
would have ventured to compromise his reputation in 
the way described, unless his experience of artistic 
journalism had convinced him that " every man had 
his price." The surprise which the discovery of his 
mistake occasioned, not only to himself but to the 
circle of confreres to whom he must have communi- 
cated it, puts the exceptional nature of the occurrence 
beyond the reach of doubt. 

This, as will be hereafter seen, was by no means an 
isolated experience in Chorley's professional life ; but 
it is not upon the strength of such instances — for 
which he would have been ashamed to take or receive 
credit — that his claim to be considered sans penr ct 
sans reproclie is to be rested. The whole tenor of his 
critical career, seems to have been pervaded and con- 
secrated by a single aim. That Art should be true to 
herself, her purpose high, her practice stainless, was a 
creed which he never wearied of preaching. Against 
any tradition of the past, or innovation of the present, 
that savored of falsehood or trick ; against all pre- 
tenders, who concealed their nakedness by meretricious 
display or arrogant self-assertion, he ceaselessly pro- 
tested and inveighed. Alike to the bribery of mana- 
gers, the venality of journalists and claqueurs, the 
extmvagant assumption of composers, and the insolent 
vanity of singers and instrumentalists, he showed him- 
self a bitter, almost a remorseless, enemy. His per- 



148 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY 



sistence brought him many enemies in return, but 
they never made him swerve or keep silence. 

When looking back, through a vista of thirty years, 
upon his professional life, and comparing his matured 
impressions (drawn from recollection alone) of the 
artistes he had heard, with the critical estimates he 
had pronounced upon them at the time, Chorley could 
say that he " had found no discrepancy betwixt- past 
and present judgments worth adverting to." (Intro- 
duction to " Thirty Years' Musical Recollections," p. 
xi.) Although this statement must not be taken an 
pied de la lettre, it no doubt expresses with sufficient 
accuracy the gross result of the comparison in ques- 
tion, and may be applied even more widely to charac- 
terize the rapidity and accuracy with which he arrived 
at his conclusions, and the conservative tone of his 
criticism generally. He doubtless owed the first of 
these characteristics, in great measure, to an excep- 
tional development of natural faculty, to which experi- 
ence gave increased strength and fineness. His 
extreme sensibility of ear* enabled him to seize at a 
single hearing, and his singularly retentive memory to 
produce for subsequent reflection, the salient features 
of a musical composition, which an ordinarily gifted 

" It was naturally acute rather than accurate, as he testified in his 
Lectures on National Music (1862). " I have met no one with quicker 
and more exact and retentive power than myself; and it has been in 
incessant exercise during thirty years ; but not a few of these had 
elapsed before I discovered that I habitually heard every musical sound 
half a note too sharp, and this without respect to the pitch to which the 
instrument or the voice was tuned. It took me no small time or pains 

to verify this fact Now everything I hear passes through the 

process of translation." 



PERSISTENCE OF PRINCIPLE, 149 

hearer would only succeed in grasping after repeated 
attendances and hours of quiet study. His journals 
attest that this promptness of apprehension, in a 
rudimentary state, was possessed by him almost from 
the first. Their records of musical experiences, which 
date from 1832, are repeatedly interspersed with 
motivi, scored from memory, but quoted with as much 
facility as if they had been verses from a favorite 
poet. Some of these passages were, no doubt, familiar 
to him, but others were avowedly transcribed after 
hearing them for the first time. Several such instan- 
ces could be cited from the journals of his visits to 
France and Germany in 1839 an d 1840; and the 
evidence of his faculty was remarkable enough to 
excite the surprise even of Mendelssohn. This advan- 
tage of acquiring rapidly and retaining surely the 
material upon which his judgment was to be exercised, 
would of itself account for the decisive tone of his 
enunciations; but there can be no doubt that it 
received substantial weight and justification from the 
careful thought which he had originally given to the 
theory and practice of music. There is reason, more- 
over, to believe that the artistic canons to which his 
mind had subscribed when it first devoted itself to 
their definition were those which the judgment of his 
maturer years deliberately confirmed. As an illustra- 
tion of his persistent adherence to a theory which he 
had once adopted as true, it is worthy of notice that 
in a lecture which he delivered at the Royal Institu- 
tion in 1 861, upon the relations of poetry and music, 
he elaborated the same principles already adverted to 
as laid down by him in a critique of Moore's " Irish 



150 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

Melodies" in the "Athenaeum" of 1834. In later life 
this natural bias of his mind to conservatism dis- 
played itself still more prominently, and exposed him, 
with some show of reason, to the imputation of dog- 
matism and finality, but it never rendered him 
insensible to the impression of new ideas. His 
apprehension was never more happily manifested than 
in the promptness with which he discerned the signs 
that herald the sudden advent of genius, nor his per- 
sistence more worthily employed than in the unwearied 
pertinacity with which he urged upon public attention 
the claims of any whose recognition was too long 
delayed. An illustration of the one, in connection 
with the name of Mr. Arthur Sullivan ; of the other, 
in connection with that of M. Gounod, will not fail 
to occur to all readers of the " Athenaeum." 

Chorley's own statement above quoted as to the 
absence of discrepancy between his earlier and later 
judgments, must not, however, be taken quite literally, 
or without due limitation. It should rather be inter- 
preted in the general sense already explained, and 
practically restricted to cases where the evidence 
was sufficiently complete to enable him to arrive at a 
decision at once. It would cause an entirely erroneous 
impression, if taken to mean that his mind was never 
in suspense, nor subject to those tentative fluctuations 
of opinion which every mind must undergo that has 
not been prematurely stunted, or warped by prejudice, 
His early estimate of singers like Grisi and Pasta 
assuredly differed from his later judgments, in so far as 
tfhe glowing rapture of a young enthusiast differs from 
the discriminating enjoyment of a middle-aged habitue : 



GIULIA GUI SI. 



151 



the fascination to which he yielded when the vigor 
and richness of such music as Meyerbeer's impressed 
him for the first time, was moderated by the subse- 
quent discovery of deficiencies which impaired their 
value. 

With respect to Grisi, for example — whose glorious 
endowments as an actress and singer were, in the 
opinion of some of her admirers, too imperfectly 
recognized and grudgingly praised by him in his later 
criticisms — a gradual subsidence of .enthusiasm and 
modification of judgment are clearly apparent. The 
outburst of rapture with which he chronicles, in April 
1834, his first impressions of her performance in " La 
Gazza Ladra," would satisfy the demands of her 
most exigeant worshipper. 



" I can neither be cool nor critical over this dear creature. 
Her voice is deliciously pure and young, and she sings as if 
she loved her art, and has its resources at her feet ; still I 
don't think that she has by any means reached the zenith 
of her powers. Her execution is brilliant and fearless — 
sometimes a little too florid — her arms like sculpture, but 
used in a thousand ways which would make any sculptor's 
fortune ; her hair magnificent, her action easy, passionate, 
and never extravagant ; some of the bursts of feeling, the 
1 Ben chh to sola ' in * La Gazza,' and in her trial scene, and in 
the coda of the funeral march, were positively electrifying, 
and made tears come in harder eyes than mine. . . . 
She must play Desdemona — she is the woman of women for 
the part ! In ' Anna Bolena ' I felt where Pasta's low-veiled 
tones were wanting, and the piece is so dreary that she pro- 
duced less effect than in 'La Gazza.' . . . Still, her playing 



152 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

in the last scene was splendid, and recalled to one Miss 
Mitford's most expressive personation of 

' Bright chattering Madness and sedate Despair.' 

I have dared to say that I prefer her to Malibran, and 
wait her Donna Anna with some anxiety, to see whether I shall 
be allowed by my conscience to let such a record stand." 

Later in the same year he pronounces her " per- 
fect " in " Donna Anna ;" her "first scene could not 
be surpassed " — her singing in " Semiramide " as " all 
brightness and power ; " her voice throwing out its 
" glorious altissimo notes in positive floods of brilliancy 
and power;" her acting in " Otello " as " magnifi- 
cent," and in " Anna Bolena " as " sublime." In May, 
1837, n ^ s verdict is that she is "more superb than 
ever," but the warmth of these epithets soon suffers a 
gradual diminuendo. In his journal of August, 1839, 
there occurs such an entry as this : " Grisi (in ' Nor- 
ma ' ) singing false, and certainly falling off;" and in 
the "Athenaeum" of May, 1840, she is described as 
" still something too abrupt and emphatic for our 
" Desdemona. " Further modifications are apparent 
in later notices, and the resulting average of these 
alternations of praise and censure is embodied in his 
deliberate estimate of her in the " Musical Recollec- 
tions," vol. i. pp. 108-117. Other instances to the 
same effect could be readily adduced. 

How just in the main were his contemporary ver- 
dicts, how accurate his forecasts have proved to be, 
has been repeatedly observed since his death. That 
his judgment was occasionally at fault is undeniable, 



SIX MICHAEL COSTA. 



153 



and, with a candor too rare among critics, he was the 
first to call attention to the failure. An instance in 
point may be cited from the musical annals of 1844-6. 
On the appointment of Signor (now Sir Michael) 
Costa, in the former year, as conductor of the Phil- 
harmonic Society's Concerts, Chorley denounced it as 
strange and unsuitable, prophesying that " the only 
result of such proceeding inevitably would be out- 
rageously unpopular." (Athenaeum, 1844, p. 105 1.) 
He was made sensible of his error after hearing the first 
concert under the new regime, and hastened to retract. 
" Without unnecessary words of exaggeration, it may 
be stated as past question that the first Philharmonic 
Concert established Signor Costa in the foremost rank 
of conductors of classical music, and justified the 
directors in their choice. As we somewhat mistrusted 
the discretion of his appointment, it behoves us 
emphatically to say that we have heard no Philhar- 
monic performance to compare with Monday's (March 
1 6th). The orchestra is entirely under the control of 
SignorCosta's ' baton,' " etc. ("Athenaeum," i846,p. 298.) 

Chorley's own volume of recollections already 
cited furnishes a resume of his experiences and opin- 
ions in musical matters, so much more completely 
and accurately than they could otherwise be supplied, 
that it is needless to attempt to supplement it. It 
may enhance the value of this volume, however, in 
the eyes of those who have read it without knowing 
anything of the writer, if we point out the means by 
which he obtained his experience and informed his 
judgment. 

All lovers of music and frequenters of its public 

7* 



154 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



performance in London during the last forty years, 
whether of opera, oratorio, or concert, will probably 
be familiar with his figure ; but only his intimates will 
be likely to know how ubiquitous he really was, and 
what toil and cost he was ready to expend in the dis- 
charge of his duty. Year after year, from 1836 to 
1868, and often more than once a year, he was in the 
habit of making expeditions to the Continent, for the 
purpose of hearing music that could not be heard, or 
seeing artistes who would not perform in England. In 
spite of his weak physique he w r ould undertake these 
expeditions at any season, and sometimes at a moment's 
warning. Long night-journeys in the most pitiless 
of weather and unaccommodating of conveyances, 
interruptions of pre-arranged plans of travel and 
needful seasons of repose, were cheerfully submitted 
to if Music were the siren that summoned him. His 
Continental journals abound with evidences of' a va- 
grancy that any one unacquainted with his motive 
would naturally ascribe to the restlessness of disease. 
Having settled down, to all appearance, for a week at 
Leipsic, he suddenly emerges at Berlin, lured by the 
report of a performance of Gluck. From Dresden 
he hurries off to Paris on a similar errand ; or when 
bound for the South, diverges from his route for miles 
to be present at a concert which Liszt has announced 
at Mayence. Whenever he was able so to time his 
annual holiday as to attend these performances in the 
course of it, his professional and personal expenditure 
was always duly adjusted. 

The visits which he paid to France in 1836, 1837, 
and 1839, an d to Germany in 1839, 1840, and 1841, 



CHOPIN. 



55 



were more memorable to him, perhaps, than any other, 
both as enlarging the sphere of his experience and 
reputation, and giving rise to the formation of one of 
his most cherished friendships. In Paris he became 
familiar with music of Meyerbeer, Auber, Halevy, and 
Chopin, then and for some time afterwards little known 
or regarded in London, and added the two last com- 
posers to the number of his acquaintance. At his 
interview with Chopin, whom he describes " as pale, 
thin, and profoundly melancholy " in appearance, he 
was gratified by hearing the composer perform a suc- 
cession of characteristic morceanx on the piano. 

" His touch," writes Chorley, " has all the delicacy of a 
woman's but is not so fine. Voila a very impalpable dis- 
tinction ! but a distinction for all that. I mean to say that 
I don't think any female finger of so small a timbre would 
have produced a tone in its weight so significant without the 
slightest impression of pressure. The long extensions with 
which his music abounds, again, are managed by throwing 
the whole hand forwards in a manner which I can hardly 
fancy a woman doing without making a jerk. In the first 
example I was struck by the delicacy, almost ad libitum, of 
the fiorimenti he introduced — all the harmonies are helped 

and massed together by the aid of the pedal No 

want of fire and passion, no want of neatness, if you regard 
the whole thing as veiled music, and such it is." 

Nourrit, Dup.ez and Mario, Persiani, Pauline Gar- 
cia, Dorus-Gras, Cinti-Damoreau, Nau, and Anna 
Thillon, were among the eminent singers whom Chor- 
ley heard for the first time in Paris. Here, too, he 
familiarised himself with the methods of instruction 



1^6 REMINISCENCES OF CIIORIEY. 

in part-singing then recently introduced by Mainzer 
and Wilhem. Of the latter he entertained a high 
opinion, and on his return home lent all his influence 
in support of Mr. Hullah's efforts to establish a similar 
system in England. 

The chief feature of his earliest visit to Germany 
in 1839 was the introduction to Mendelssohn, which 
laid the foundation of their friendship. No contem- 
porary composer occupied a higher place in his esti- 
mation ; and his praise, both in public and private, 
had not been stinted. After hearing the performance 
of " St. Paul," at Exeter Hall, in September, 1837, he 
writes in his journal : — 

11 As music this ranks high — next to Handel's — so much 
simpler and less cloyingly enriched than Spohr's. . . . 
Deliciously cantabile for the voices — in places very grand — 
in places fanciful without eccentricity; and always beauti- 
fully expressive. Medelssohn is certainly the Oratorio- 
writer." 

The detailed notice in the " Athenseum," of which 
this is the rough draft, and other expressions of his 
critical admiration had probably been brought to the 
composer's notice by their common friend Moscheles. 
Chorley's visit to the Brunswick Festival, in 1839, was > 
at all events, expected by Mendelssohn, and they met 
as old acquaintance. The circumstances of their 
meeting, among other memorabilia of his musical expe- 
rience on the Continent during this and the two fol- 
lowing years, Chorley has sufficiently described in his 
" Music and Manners in France and Germany." That 
volume is mainly compiled from the elaborate journals 



MENDELSSOHN ASA PIANIST. 



157 



which he kept on the occasion ; but a few notes which, 
for obvious reasons, he omitted to transcribe from 
them may now wichout impropriety be added to sup- 
plement it. The first impression made upon him by 
Mendelssohn's appearance is thus described : — - 

" I had already made myself aware that he was not in 
the least like any portrait I have seen, and that he is a cap- 
ital conductor, though in quite a different genre from Mos- 
cheles — as different as their two musics. . . . He is 
very handsome, with a particularly sweet laugh, and a slight 
cloud (not to call it thickness) upon his utterance, which 
seemed like the voice of some friend. . . . Nothing 
could be kinder than he was." 

A few days later there is an entry in the journal 
which describes Mendelssohn's power as a pianist : 

" He played his own Concerto (in D) on a peculiarly 
ungrateful Vienna pianoforte ; but no matter. It is 
thoroughly artistic playing ; a certain organ-fullness, but not 
organ-heaviness, in his touch ; a capital management of 
time — so free, and still so not too free; a complete freedom 
from all possible mannerism ; a fullness of expression with- 
out the least constraint ; a complete absence of all petitesse ; 
and a degree of animating spirit communicating itself to his 
orchestra, the mixture of which seems to make him as essen- 
tial to his own music as is Thalberg." * 

Their converse was thoroughly cordial during this 
visit, and they frankly interchanged ideas and dis- 
cussed joint projects, which are referred to in the sub- 

* For a more elaborate description of Mendelssohn as a pianist 
compare Chorley's " Modern German Music/' vol. i. pp. 50, 51. 



158 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

joined letters "- of Mendelssohn, written after Chorley's 
return to England. 

" Leipzig, 28th Feb., 1S40. 
" My dear Friend : — 

" Your letter gave me a very great pleasure. I wish 
your occupations might allow you to write me sometimes, 
and not too seldom ; I shall always answer punctually, and 
it would be a very great treat to me to continue, as it were, 
a conversation which we were compelled to break off too 
soon. There is none of my friends in England whose 
letters give me so quite the feeling of presence as yours do, 
and as you say you must use a dictionary to read a German 
letter, I will much rather use it in writing an English one, 
and put you to the inconvenience of deciphering my imagi- 
nary language, which I intend for yours. And now I will not 
say more on the subject, but let us often hear from each 
other. Thanks for your ideas on the plan of Dives and 
Lazarus — be sure that I am fully aware of your kindness in 
thus discussing the matter with me, instead of leaving it off 
at once, as I unfortunately experienced it so often ; and I 
thank you more for it than I can well express. After what 
you say, I see that I have not been able to form an exact 
idea of what you intend the whole to be ; the fact is, that I 
did not quite understand what part both figures should act 
in hell or in heaven, because I do not quite understand the 
part they act on earth — and indeed the true sense of the 
story itself, as I find it in the Evangile — or is there another 
source, which you took your notions from ? I asked some 
of my theological friends here, but they knew none. — I only 
find Dives very rich and Lazarus very poor, and as it cannot 
be only for his riches that one is burning in hell, while the 
other must have greater claims to be carried to Abraham's 
* All these letters are transcribed literatim. 



LETTER FR OM ME A r DEL SSO HN. 



!59 



bosom than his poverty alone, it seemed to me as if some 
very important part of the story was left in blank. Or 
should Lazarus be taken as an example of a virtuous poor 
man ; the other of the contrary ? But then we ought to 
know or to learn (by the poem) what he does or has done to 
deserve the greatest of all rewards ; the mere reason (as 
given in St. Luke) that he suffered want, and that the other 
has had his share of happiness on earth already, does not 
seem sufficient to me to give interest to the principal figure 
of such a poem as that which you intend. Perhaps you have 
another view of the whole ; pray let me know it, and tell me 
what part you would give to both of them in earth, hell, and 
heaven. If once delivered of this scruple, I should quite 
agree w T ith your opinion, and the great beauties you point out 
I should certainly feel and admire with all my heart. Do 
not lose patience with me ; I am of a rather slow under- 
standing, and can never move forwards until I have quite 
understood a thing. The best is, that in all such discus- 
sions one always draws nearer, not only to the subject, but 
also to each other. But what is this return of your illness, 
and the continual complaint of which you write me ? You 
seemed so well and so high in your spirits when we met 
here. Are you not too busy, and take too little rest ? Half 
an hour's rest or walk may benefit so much if taken in right 
time ; but I am afraid London is the worst place for think- 
ing of such things, which, however, take always revenge if 
neglected. And yet it must be possible there also. Am I 
not talking like an old ' Philister ? ' I am in earnest, however. 
Pray give me better news in your next letter • tell me that you 
are quite recovered, and that you will take care of yourself. 
" Of the Moscheles and Klingeman you do not speak. 
Do you know whether the first have received my letter two 
or three months ago, and the other * letters lately, and 

* Original torn. 



i6o REMINISCENCES OF CIIORLEY. 

how are they ? What you say of Miss- -is, I am sorry to 

say, quite my opinion \ and the impression her continental 
tour has produced upon her seems to me very far from favor- 
able. I always thought every sensible person should only 
improve by kindness shown to her, and be driven to greater 
exertions by the expectations and the praises of friends ; and 
I was more sorry than I can express to see in this instance 
quite the contrary. This and a few other similar experiences 
I believe to be the causes why I cannot think of my return- 
ing to England with so unmixed a pleasure as I should have 
done otherwise ; indeed, I find it difficult to make up my 
mind, whether I should like to go or not, while I would not 
have hesitated a moment in former years. I had some letters 
about Musical Festivals at Birmingham and Edinburgh, 
which made me think over these matters very often last week j 
and yet I was not able to overcome all my objections, and 
much as I wish to see again your country and all my excel- 
lent friends there, I fear that I shall rather decline than 
accept those kind and honoring offers. Does not Moscheles 
go to the Continent next summer ? and when and to which 
place? If he went to Hamburgh, perhaps I could manage 
to pay him a visit. What you write of the Conservatoire of 
Paris has surprised me, and I could scarcely believe it, if I 
had not found the same fault in their execution of Mozart's 
and Haydn's, which you blame in Beethoven's, works ; their 
extreme vivacity had carried them to overload the two former 
masters' compositions, and to hunt for effects and admira- 
tion where a conscientious fidelity was required, and nothing 
more. This was not the case with Beethoven's symphonies, 
which they really performed without frivolity and exaggera- 
tion ; but eight years have elapsed since, and as they most 
probably wanted to add some new and better effects every 
year, it must be now the same case as with their predeces- 
sors, and then I am afraid they will get tired of them as soon 






LETTER FROM MENDELSSOHN. 161 

as of the others. But now good-bye. David sends a thou- 
sand wishes, and will write in German one of these days. 
Schleinitz sends his regards, and talks often of the 'English- 
man,' meaning you par excellence. Once more adieu. 
" Always very truly yours, 

" F. Mendelssohn By." 

"Leipzig, 21st July, 1840. 

" My dear Sir : — 

"I was not able to write to you until I had made up my 
mind as to my intended journey to England. My health was 
not in a very good state these last two months ; the physician 
wanted to send me to some 'Brunnen' instead of a Musical 
Festival. I felt weary and uncomfortable, and there were 
many days when I had quite given up the idea of visiting 
England this year, and yet I deferred writing a decisive let- 
ter from one day to the other. Now, since I have come 
back from the Festival at Schwerin (where I got your very 
kind letter by Mr. Werner, whom I saw every day and liked 
very much), I am so much improved, and my spirits are so 
high again, that the medicus withdrew his opposition, and 
accordingly I wrote to-day to Birmingham and accepted pos- 
itively j and now my first question is, how is it with your 
plans ? with your beautiful idea of visiting Milan or Vienna, 
and crossing over with me and staying some time with us ? 
Do you know that such a prospect would make my whole 
journey to England look bright and gay ? What a pleasant 
journey we would have together ! What a delightful chat 
from Belgium to Saxony ! Pray let me soon hear that you 
still have the same intentions and adhere to this plan, which 
would give me such pleasure — and write me that you are not 
angry for my long silence, which, is, indeed, the more inex- 
cusable as your last letters are so friendly, so very welcome, 
and as I always wanted to thank you for them with all my 



1 62 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

heart. But this uncertainty would not allow me to write a 
single letter to England ; and now that it is at an end, I 
have nothing to do but to excuse my former sins. I have 
also written to Klingemann this morning with the same 
object in view, and shall do so to the Moscheles. I hope to 
find them all in England, and well, and the same kind friends 
as before. I have thought very often of our Oratorio plan ; 
and although I could not reconcile myself to the idea of 
introducing Dives and Lazarus, your sketches have given me 
another idea for the introduction of my favorite plan, which 
I think is the right one, and which I long to communicate to 
you, and to hear your opinion of it. But I must do it in per- 
son, not in writing, and we must talk it over, not only corres- 
pond about it ; and, therefore, pray keep much leisure time 
open for me and for my plans. Perhaps I shall annoy you 
very much with them, but then you must only accuse your 
own kindness, which induces me to think you more of an old 
friend than a new one. As for your opening of the second 
part, with the verses 31, etc., from Matthew, chap, xxv., it is 
a glorious idea, and that of course must remain, but * miind- 
lich, mund-Iich.' 

" I was glad to hear that you like Liszt so much ; he is such 
an extraordinary artist. He wrote me that he would prob- 
ably assist at the Festival at Birmingham ; but I hear he has 
given a concert at Mayence one of these days. Is he to 
come back to England ? and is Molique better, who was so 
very ill, as I understood ? David sends his best regards and 
wishes : he is in better humour for playing and composing 
than ever, and his new concerto at the Schwerin Festival was 
capital. I am now finishing the concerto for him, of which 
you recollected the last movement so perfectly. By-the-bye, 
what an extraordinary memory you must have, to write three 
subjects of a piece, which you only heard once, without mis- 
sing a note ! But I have not altered anything at the end of 



LETTER FROM MENDELSSOHN. ^3 

the first movement of my Trio, and cannot make out what 
might have been the cause of your thinking so. Did they 
play it fast enough ? I hope you will like my new ' Lobge- 
sang,' or ' Song of Praise,' which we performed here at the 
Festival, and which they will give at Birmingham on the sec- 
ond morning. It is a kind of universal thanksgiving on the 
words of the last psalm, ' Let all that hath breath praise God.' 
The instruments begin it with a symphony of three move- 
ments, but then it will not do ; and the voices take it up and 
continue it with different feelings and words, solos and 
choruses, till they all unite again in the same words. It is 
rather long, but I think and hope you will like some parts of 
it better than my other things. I will also bring some other 
new compositions ; and this leads me to a question which I 
also put to Klingemann, and to which I should like to know 
your answer and very sincere opinion, as I shall be guided 
by it. It is now so long since I have not been heard in 
public in London, that I should like to arrange a concert for 
some charitable institution during my stay in September next, 
it might either be in a church, and there I could only play the 
organ, or (which I would prefer) in a room, where I could 
perform my new pianoforte music, a new overture, etc. But 
the question is, first, whether such a thing is possible in the 
month of September, when everybody is out of town ? then, 
if such concerts to benevolent purposes are known and liked 
in your country, and, in short, whether you advise the thing 
to be done or not ? If the two first points are not an objec- 
tion, I should like the idea ; but, as I said, let me be guided 
by your view of the case. The period of my arrival is not 
yet quite fixed. If my wife can accompany me on the jour- 
ney, I intend to be in London soon after the middle of next 
month ; if not, I will only leave Leipzig in the beginning of 
September, as I know, by experience, how fidgetty I feel with- 
out her, even among my best and kindest friends. On our 



164 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

journey home from the ' Norddeutsche Musikfest,' at 
Schwerin, we passed through Berlin, and spent three very 
pleasant [days] there. I found my family in excellent health 
and spirits ; and they return your kind remembrance and 
wishes with all their heart. And now enough of my bad 
style and broken English ; let me soon hear from you, my 
dear friend, and believe me always yours 
" Very truly, 

" Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy." 



The projected visit to England, which forms the 
chief subject of reference in the last letter, was duly 
made in September, 1840; and Mendelssohn conducted 
the performance of his " Lobgesang " at the Birming- 
ham Festival. On his return to Leipsic in October, he 
was accompanied by Moscheles and Chorley. The 
latter's journal of the tour affords a pleasant portraiture 
of both his travelling companions — " Moscheles of a 
humor quaint and curious, and more genial than I had 
at all expected from one habitually so calm and 
reserved ; Mendelssohn warm and petulant about small 
troubles and hindrances, but good-natured to an excess, 
and spirituel and cheerful passing common cheerful- 
ness." 

They travelled by way of Ostend and Cologne, up 
the Rhine, through Frankfort and Weimar. The 
Rhine voyage was especially interesting to Chorley, 
as Mendelssohn knew " all the points of the river like 
a lover, and showed them to me with the eagerness of 
one who has sympathy in his heart." On the road to 
Weimar, Medelssohn recalled an amusing episode of 
his visit there many years before, as Goethe's guest. 



A NE CD TE GF MENDEL SSOHN. T 6 e 

The Grand Duchess having expressed a wish to hear 
him play, an intimation was made to him that he had 
better call upon the Hof-Marschall ; but standing on his 
dignity, and probably knowing something of that func- 
tionary's mode of treating musicians, he declined to 
do this, expressing at the same time his readiness to 
accept a formal invitation to the court. Such an invi- 
tation was at last sent to him, and he accompanied 
Madame von Goethe one Sunday evening to the 
Belvidere. On arriving, he was asked his name by the 
official in waiting, and on giving it, was separated 
from his companion, and led " through a labyrinth of 
by-passages to a small waiting-room, where cloaks and 
such ignoble wrappings are deposited," being directed 
to wait there until the Hof-Marschall came. After 
waiting alone for half an hour, the youth began to 
chafe. " At last, provoked and indignant, he takes 
his crush-hat, and rushes out. The servants try to 
hinder him — he must not go ; he will be called upon 
presently ; every one will be very much displeased, and 
so forth ; to which no answer, save that go he will, 
and go he does, across the fields, in full evening dress, 
straight to Goethe's house, leaving the formal court to 
stare and wonder for their pianoforte player ; a circle 
having been convoked expressly to meet him." Men- 
dlessohn went on to say that this protest had the 
desired effect, and that the court officials were hence- 
forth instructed to treat Hummel, who had been 
accustomed to similar indignities, with becoming 
respect. 

The week which Chorley spent at Leipsic was one 
of ceaseless musical entertainment ; Mendelssohn and 



1 66 REMINISCENCES OF C II OR LEY. 

Herr David, first-violinist of the Gezvandhaus Con- 
certs, vieing with each other in deference and hospi- 
tality to their English visitor. One delicate act of 
attention rendered by Mendelssohn on this occasion 
is worth special mention. A painful attack of lame- 
ness that had confined Chorley to his hotel, had pre- 
vented him from enjoying several of the musical treats 
which he had anticipated. 

" I was lying down," he writes, " in all the fullness of wretch- 
edness .... when a little bustle at the door announced the 
arrival of a concert-flugel from Breitkopf and Hartel. I 
shall always think of this with emotion. Mendelssohn had 
sent it, and he and JMoscheles were coming to make their 
evening's music by the side of my sofa ! One hardly knows 
how to take these things without seeming extravagant ; and 
I could not help running over, in thought, years of struggle 
and obscurity, and longing, when such a visitation would 
have seemed to me a positive faery-dream. . . . Then 
one's mind so strongly and sadly associates with its thoughts 
at such times all who are gone ; and I could not but remem- 
ber what a sympathy poor Benson would have had in seeing 
my tastes thus ministered to, and without, I hope, any obtru- 
siveness or flattery on my part." 

Another entry chronicles an illustration of the 
composer's gaiete de cceur — trifling enough in itself, but 
yet characteristic of the man. While spending an 
evening at his house, a note with a ticket enclosed 
was put into Chorley's hand. The note ran thus : — 

" ' The Directors of the Leipzig Concerts beg leave to 
present to Mr. Shurely a ticket to the Concert of to-mor- 
row.' Whereupon Mendelssohn ran to the pianoforte, and 



SCHUMANN. 



l6? 



began to play the subject from the chorus of the ' Messiah,' 
' Surely he hath borne, etc' " 

Among other acquaintances which Chorley made 
on this visit were the composer Schumann, and the 
accomplished pianiste his wife. Her command of the 
instrument struck Chorley as "masterly," although 
" perhaps a little wanting in grace and delicacy ;" but 
he was less favorably impressed with her husband's 
music. The pieces selected were his " Kreisleriana," 
— fantasy-pieces with that affected and Hoffmanish 
title, and written studies, neither songs without words, 
nor notturni, nor recitatives in rhythm, but partaking 
of all these natures; exceedingly wild, exceedingly 
clever, with some passages of very sweet melody, and 
some middle work of very fine construction ; but, after 
all, clouded, and dreamy, and heavy : a sort of answer 
to the spirit of Berlioz talking on the pianoforte. 
Surely music is neither to end nor to stay here, else 
will it become a house for no sane man to dwell in ! 

Chorley 's estimate of Schumann's music was never 
materially modified, though he lived to witness the 
success which, after the composer's early death, 
attended the efforts of Madame Schumann to obtain 
his semi-apotheosis. 

At Mendelssohn's house in Leipsic, Chorley was 
treated with a familiar kindness that won his heart. 
He was especially charmed with the infantine grace 
of his host's little boy (now Dr. Karl Mendelssohn), 
and on the journey home addressed a sonnet to him, 
which, as well for its own sake as for the gratification 
which it afforded to the composer, may be appropri- 



1 68 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

ately inserted here. It was sent to him, as may be 
inferred, between the dates of the two succeeding 
letters. 



"TO C. MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY. 

" Now, while the Night with sad embrace hath kissed 
The earth to silence, save for winds that grieve, 
My heart is counting o'er the things I leave 
With tender watchfulness that none be missed : 
And 'mid the ties which Life will scarce untwist, 
O blooming, bright-haired Boy ! thou, too, did'st weave 
A tiny thread — with looks that all believe, 
And gladsome voice. Oh , may it aye resist, 
Merry as now, the harsher tones of Time ! 
Thou wilt forget me ere again we meet ; 
And I am townward bound — to play the mime 
'Mid worldly men — perchance myself to cheat: 
Fit is it then that one atoning rhyme 
So fair a gift of Heaven should simply greet." 

The following was received in answer to the first 
letter written by Chorley after his return : 

" Leipzig, 24th Jan, 1841. 

"My dear Chorley :— 

" Here comes your knife and speaks : ' How long is it 
that you left me on F. M. B."s table ? And why did he not 
send me sooner to my lord and master, and why did he not 
write sooner, and why is he so idle ?' But then the knife is 
too sharp, for I was not idle, and I wanted often to write and 
say a great deal to you ■ and very odd it was when I knew 
you on your way to France, and found the knife with your 
name reposing so quietly on my writing table. And you 
receive another debt of mine with it, the ' Evangelium Nico- 
demi.' It was long before I could find out a copy for you, 
and very brilliant it is not, and looks more like a school 



LETTER FROM MENDELSSOHN. 169 

grammar than like a poetical enthusiastic Evangile, which, 
however, you will find it is, when you have leisure to look it 
over. I hope that may soon be the case ; and you may then 
think of our conversation in Belgium on the railroad, and in 
different other places, and think of the great work to which 
you so kindly and friendly promised your assistance. But 
even if you find at present no leisure to read it, the look of 
it will, I hope, recall your friends in Lurgenstein's garden to 
your mind, and will make you think, if not of my work and 
music, at least of me and my wife and children. 

" I have now three, and a very pretty, healthy, good-look- 
ing fellow the youngest is. My wife has not yet left her 
room, but is, thank God, so well, and in so excellent spirits 
that I really have passed one of the happiest weeks since the 
birth of the little boy. The time before such an event is 
always so serious, and then I had such a quantity of busi- 
ness, musical and other, in my head, that I cannot express 
how relieved I feel since all is so happily over. 

" My wife joins in best wishes and compliments to you, 
and hopes to see you soon on so good terms with the young- 
est as you are with the two other children. Have my best 
thanks for your very kind and welcome letter, with the news 
of your stay in Paris, and of all our mutual London friends. 
They are almost as bad correspondents as I am ; at least, 
when I take the start I beat them, as I have now completely 
done since our arrival here. I hope from one day to another 
to hear from Moscheles and Klingemann, for there were 
many things in their last accounts which interested me very 
much, and of which I long to hear more particulars \ as, for 
instance, the Singing Academy which they were to open, and 
from which I think much good might be anticipated under 
the auspices of two such artists. The only drawback seems 
to me the difficulty for English ladies of moving alone 
(without servants, gentlemen, and other accompaniments 
8 



170 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



obligato), which, however, is almost indispensable for such an 
undertaking; and (unless it is to be confined only to the 
inferior classes) I do not know how this obstacle in England, 
as well as in France, may be overcomed. And then the 
second, that men of business should consider music, and 
the participating of it, as something not below their dignity, 
and that they should have indeed their heads free enough to 
count the pauses and the sharps and flats. With us, who shut 
up from twelve to two, as you know, and who have done in 
shops and counting-houses at seven, the thing is quite differ- 
ent ; and then all our girls run about the streets by them- 
selves the whole day long ; and then at night, if there are 
three or four of them, and an old spinster in the rear, they 
will roam and fear nothing; or the singing gentlemen will 
take them home, at which idea every Frenchman's morals 
would go into violent fits. I am therefore very anxious to 
know how Moscheles and Benedict will have organised this 
new undertaking, for all those French essays made by Mr. 
Mainzer and the others are nothing like our societies. Did 
you hear something of those while at Paris ? and what is 
your opinion of them ? And now I recollect that I am still 
more in your debt than I thought when I began the letter ; 
that I have not even thanked you yet, in the name of my 
wife, for that charming little poem which Moscheles sent me 
the other day, composed partly by him and partly by myself 
[yourself ], for the kind, hearty feeling which it expresses, 
and the delightful words in which it expresses them. Have 
my best and sincerest thanks for it, my dear Chorley, and be 
sure that we appreciate your friendship to us, as well as we 
participate of and join in it. You write me that you began 
a letter to me in the Rue de la Paix,* and made a poem to 
my boy ; although I fear I must give up the former, I wish 

* Chorley was in the habit of staying at the Hotel Canterbury in 
that street, 






LETTER FROM MENDELSSOHN. 



171 



you would not force me to do so with the latter, and would 
send it to me ; for if I did not, the boy really would deserve 
it at your hands ; he speaks every day of the 'Englander,' 
of 'Onkel Chorley ' and ' Onkel Mdscheles,' and of 'How 
do you do.' Pray let me have it ; it would give me such a 
pleasure, and my wife, who has begun English lessons with 
great zeal, would also perhaps be able to understand and enjoy 
it. And now excuse the prattling letter, and let me soon 
hear from you, your life, your pursuits, and everything in 
which you take interest. Our musical news will have been 
communicated to you by Klingemann to whom I gave 
accounts of the concerts, of the battle of Cannae, in which 
Mile. Schloss was Hannibal and Mile. List Rome, and of 
everything in the way of art gossip. But of England I am 
without musical as well as personal news, and should like to 
get soon plenty of both. Once more farewell, and think 
sometimes of yours sincerely, 

" Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy." 

" Leipzig, 15th March, [1S41]. 

" My Dear Chorley : — 

" Thank you most heartily for your two amiable letters, 
which gave me a great treat ; and thank you once more for 
the pretty lines on my little boy, which I' read with some- 
thing like emotion, thinking of the little fellow's unconscious- 
ness, and that he was already the object of my and my 
friend's best thoughts and wishes. I like the sonnet 
in itself very much. I do not know how it comes that it has 
the touch of an impromptu, without any of its imperfections, 
and that it conveys to me the feelings of a traveller musing 
over poetry or music, and with his thoughts flowing quietly 
along while the carriage does the same. Have also my 
thanks for your description of my overture to the ' Midsum- 
mer Night's Dream ' being adapted to the play at Covent 



172 



REMEXISCEiYCES OF CHORLE Y. 



Garden. I had not heard one word of it, and it interested 
me very much. If you could give me some more details as 
to the manner in which all the fairy scenes are given, and 
what and where they have done with their ' machineries,' 
etc., and which melodies they have taken from my overture 
to serve as melodramatic or other music, you would greatly 
oblige and amuse me. Pray tell me something more of it 
when your leisure allows you to do so. Our season is now 
drawing to its close; but the second part of it, from January, 
was more troublesome and vexatious than ever I found it. 
Fancy that I have had nineteen concerts since that time, and 
seven more to come in the next three weeks, not to speak 
of rehearsals of which we always had at least three in a week. 
Bach's ' Passione,' with our whole strength, amateurs and musi- 
cians, in the Thomas-Church, will make the conclusion. But 
of all this, David, the bearer of this letter, will give you more 
and better details. I have had so much to conduct and 
to perform, that Lhave neither read nor written in the course 
of this music-mad winter. Accordingly I have not even 
read ' Antony and Cleopatra ' through, but was interrupted 
in the middle of the second act, and will now wait till spring 
brings better and more quiet times and spirits. Did you 
give a look to that odd Evangile, and think of the Belgian 
railways plan ? I wish you could give me some of your 
opinions about the undertaking, for I shall certainly carry 
it into execution if I live, and hope to begin — the sooner the 
better. Those news of the Philharmonic which you give 
me, and which Moscheles' last letters confirm but too much, 
are really very sad; and I cannot help being sorry for the 
sinking of a society, which once has done so much good to 
music and musicians. But if it is true that they give 
my < Lobgesang' without waiting for the four new pieces 
which I made to it, and which I announced months ago to 
Novello, if they do it in the old version, and without once 



C II OR LEY REVISITS PARIS. 



i/3 



asking my consent, then shall I certainly withdraw all my 
good wishes for them, and cry ' Anathema ! ' or make an 
Allocution to my Orchestra, which the Pope has just done 
about the Spanish affair, and which will be, no doubt, of the 
same effect on the Philharmonic Directors as on Espartero. 
I must conclude this hasty and very bad letter. Excuse a 
giddy man. My wife and children are perfectly well and 
happy, thank God ; and the first desires her best compli- 
ments to you. 

' " Believe me always yours very truly, 

" Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. ''* 

Between the dates of the foregoing letter and the 
next which he received from Mendelssohn, Chorley had 
written and published his impressions of " Music and 
Manners in France and North Germany: a Series of 
Travelling Sketches of Art and Society. "* In 1839, 
after attending the Brunswick Festival, as above men- 
tioned, and making a tour among the Hartz Moun- 
tains, he had spent some time in Berlin, Leipsic and 
Dresden ; in the first making the acquaintance of 
Spontini, in the second, of Herr David, in the third, 
of Herr Schneider, and under their auspices hearing 
as much music and as many singers as the resources 
of the three cities afforded. He revisited Paris in the 
early part of 1840, and spent a month in diligent 
attendance at the Academie, Conservatoire, and Opera 
Comique; and in the autumn of the same year, after 
leaving Mendelssohn at Leipsic, he again visited Ber- 
lin, Dresden, and Paris, in order to complete and 
revise his impressions. Had he expended half as 
much care in the arrangement as in the collection of 
* Longman and Co., 1841, 3 vols. 



174 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 



his materials, this work might at once have taken 
rank among the standard literature of the subject which 
it illustrates ; but it was compiled, as his journal 
admits, with a haste of which the tokens are only too 
evident in its pages. Passages of solid and trenchant, 
sometimes 'brilliant criticism, tedious historical disser- 
tations, lively sketches of scenery and manners, and 
repetitions of frivolous and ephemeral gossip are so 
confusedly mingled in these volumes, that the reader 
may be forgiven if he fails to discover the real thread 
of connection which is indicated in their title. Such a 
thread, nevertheless, is really discoverable; and, how- 
ever unhappily amalgamated, these impressions of a 
shrewd and competent observer on the national char- 
acteristics of the two leading continental races, as 
illustrated in the relations of their " art and society," 
their " music and manners," thirty years ago, may 
still be read with interest. The analysis of Meyer- 
beer's " Robert le Diable" in chapter iii. of vol. i., and 
that of George Sand's literary stand-point, in chapter 
ii. of vol. iii., which are coupled as correlative instances 
of the " unnatural and ill-proportioned union of 
things religious with things sensual" then prevalent in 
France, afford favorable specimens of Chorley's method. 
The chapters devoted to the deep-seated insincerity 
and levity which corrupted the professions of literature 
and art in that country, are striking and suggestive. 
The same spirit pervades his censure of the miserable 
cabals by which the musical world of Germany was 
torn asunder, for want of that feeling of nationality 
which its political divisions then rendered impossible. 
Read by the light of recent events, these observations 



MUSIC AND MANNERS." 



m 



possess an historical significance which did not attach 
to them at the time they were penned ; and in this 
respect the book may still hold its place among the 
class of memoir es pour serv.ir. Of the lighter parts of 
th'e book the liveliest is the rhymed letter to a friend 
(Lady Blessington), giving the following description of 
Berlin : — 

" A wide white city stretched along the brink 
Of the thick Spree — no river, but a sink. . . . 
Houses in ranks and squadrons, each arrayed 
In one same uniform of dull parade ; 
As if old Fritz (whose shade, methinks, looks down, 
A pig-tailed cherub in a false bay-crown, 
Simpering to ape the sneer of keen Voltaire, 
The while he hovers heavily in air,) 
Had bidden the conscript walls to muster come 
By proclamation made at beat of drum." 

In a pecuniary point of view " Music and Man- 
ners " was very far from being a success ; but it was 
" more kindly received, upon the whole," than its 
author expected, and attracted a fair share of atten- 
tion, especially on the Continent, where it probably 
initiated the reputation which he eventually obtained 
as the English authority, par excellence, on the subject 
of music. 

The following letter from Mendelssohn, written 
after reading the extracts given by the German 
reviews of the book, may appropriately conclude the 
account of it : — 

" Berlin, 7th Sept. 1841. 
" My Dear Chorley : — 

" Here is at last a letter (a thanking one) of mine : I 

ought to have written it long ago. You gave me so much 



Ij6 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

pleasure by your last, occasioned, as you say, by some 
Frahliugslied of mine. But by which ? I composed such a 
heap of them, and every winter the evil will be increased 
instead of cured. So which do you mean ? The one I sent 
to Klingemann in G, or that in B flat ? And what an enor- 
mously beautiful phrase you have been writing about your 
book ! I cannot answer to that until I have read the corpus, 
not delicti, but beneficii, I dare say. Strange enough it is 
that I have not yet been able to get it, and do not know 
anything beyond what I saw in almost all the German papers, 
which I found this spring at a Leipsig coffee-house. There 
they had translated your fine fluent English in their own 
hackneyed style, one this bit, and one the other; and they 
all like and praised it very much, and gave outlines, as they 
called it, of the whole ; but of course that conveyed only a 
very limited and weak idea of your work to me, and I long 
the more to read it by myself in the shape it was meant and 
written. There is a man here who promised to get it and 
let me have it, but till now he has not kept his promise, and 
I must not wait with my letter any more for him, else your 
indignation at my correspondentship will rise to such a pitch. 
Of a surety, I will think of some Shakesperian songs ; but 
never did it before, and such things must have time with 
me. Is, then, Adelaide Kemble still in England-? My 
mother told me the other day she was expected, or had 
appeared at some concert (I can believe Liszt's) at Frank- 
furt. What is this ? Has she left England again for a long 
time ? I hope not. Liszt is anxiously waited for by the 
Berlin Musical world, but if he should again disappoint 
them, and leave Berlin at his left hand's side (as we call it in 
German) I for one could not blame him ; for indeed one of 
the extracts of your book, which I read, and which was a 
quotation from Burney about Berlin, is up to the present 
day so dreadfully true, that I almost wish you had not quo- 



LETTER FROM MENDELSSOHN. 



177 



ted him or I had not read it. I do not recollect the words, 
but it was something to the purpose that the people here 
made up for their defects in practising the arts, by their acute- 
ness and correctness in critical observations : so they did at 
Burney's time, which is some years ago, so they do to-day, 
and I am sure will do after the same period again. It is in 
the air, in the sand, in the want of historical bottom which 
their whole life has, in the want of flowing water, of God 
knows what, but it is. A shame that I should say so, whom 
they really receive at present with such a kindness, as to make 
me think the whole town and the people were fine, even if they 
were twice as ugly ; but I cannot help it, and, with all my 
gratitude, truth will out in almost every conversation I have, 
and in every letter I write. Yet do not tell anybody of it ; 
I still think I may be mistaken. All my family is well, and 
unites in many compliments and wishes to you. I wrote a 
long account of my occupations, and of the prospects of my 
Berlin career to Klingemann, and will not repeat it accord- 
ingly; but I will repeat that you have given me a true pleas- 
ure by your kind letter, that you always do so whenever you 
write to me, and that I wish and beg you to be a generous 
correspondent to yours, 

" Very truly, 

" Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy." 
8* 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Literary Life from 1841 to 1851 — Connection with "Athenaeum" — 
Contributions toother serials — -Letter from Douglas Jerrold — Edits 
Ladies, Companion — Minor Poems — Drama of " Old Love and New 
Fortune"— Miss Mitford's Opinion of it. 

CHORLEY'S connection with the " Athenaeum" — 
during these years remained pretty much in the 
same footing as before. Many works of the highest 
rank published at that time passed under his criticism ; 
among them the poems of Tennyson, and of Mr. and 
Mrs. Browning, Hawthorne's " Mosses from an Old 
Manse," and " Scarlet Letter," Dickens' " Martin Chuz- 
zlewit," " David Copperfield" and " Christmas Carols," 
Macaulay's " Lays," Thackeray's minor sketches, and 
several works of Lord Lytton, Miss Bronte, and 
Disraeli. Besides his regular weekly work for the 
" Athenaeum," he contributed several articles to the 
" British and Foreign" and " New Quarterly" Reviews 
" Bentley's Miscellany," the " People's Journal," and 
" Jerrold's Magazine." He appears to have been 
upon the regular staff of the last-named journal; and 
the letters which he received from Jerrold — no mean 
judge of literary ability — attest the high value which 
was set upon his services. The transmission of proofs 
and cheques from an editor to a contributor is too 
rarely accompanied b)isuch expressions of approval as 



LETTER FROM DOUGLASS JERROLD. iyg 

some of these letters contain — " your touching and 
beautiful verse ; " " papers each of which ought to be 
a bank-note" — phrases which from such plain-speak- 
ing lips as Jerrold's can scarcely have been meaning- 
less. Most of these letters relate too much to details 
of business to be generally interesting, but one is suf- 
ficiently characteristic of the writer to deserve inser- 
tion. 

" [Undated, but between 1845 and 1848.] 
" My Dear Chorley : — 

" I have given directions that your proof be immediately 
sent. Will you forward the October to Tomlins ? 

"I am off on Saturday. Shall you be near the Museum 
Club any time from six to nine on Thursday ? I shall be 
there. I send you cheque, with best wishes for all comfort 
in your approaching holiday. I go to solitude in Sark, ' far 
amid the melancholy main.' Such a place for a man to lie 
upon his back, and hear ' the waves moan for sleep that 
never comes.' 

"Yours ever, 

"D.J." 

On the retirement of Mrs. Loudon from the editor- 
ship of the " Lady's Companion," the proprietor offered 
the post to Chorley, at a remuneration which, as he 
wrote to his friend in Liverpool, " for the first time in 
my life, put me entirely at ease in my circumstances." 
He conducted this serial from Midsummer, 1850, to 
Midsummer, 185 1, and wrote much for it, both in prose 
and verse. 

One of Chorley's uncompleted designs towards the 
close of his life, was to collect for publication the best 



l8o REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

of the poems which he had contributed to the serial 
literature of the past thirty years; and he has left in 
manuscript a considerable portion of such a volume, 
,vhich was to be " gratefully and affectionately" in- 
scribed to " Barry Cornwall, as the first poet who hon- 
ored " him " with a word of kindness." 

The most ambitious poetical effort of these years 
was the construction of a five-act play, after the pat- 
tern of the post-Elizabethan domestic drama, which, 
in the hands of Sheridan Knowles, had proved so suc- 
cessful upon the modern stage. Its title of " Old Love 
and New Fortune" was appropriately expressive of the 
moral agencies set in motion — the immemorial antag- 
onism of affection and pride. The plot is, unfortu 
nately, too elaborate to admit of compression into the 
shape of an argument which would be readily intelli- 
gible. If not framed with much regard to probabilities, 
it is undeniably skilful, and abounds in effective situa- 
tions. The two principal personages — La Roque, a 
wild, generous gallant, and Sybil Harcourt, the wilful 
beauty whom he loves — are creations of real flesh and 
blood, spiritedly and consistently conceived. Admi- 
rable as a contrast to Sybil is the other heroine, Eve, 
a gentle earnest girl, whose unacknowledged love for 
Sir Archibald, her guardian and Sybil's father, is por- 
trayed with singular delicacy and tenderness. A scene 
wherein the two girls are brought into collision is one 
of, the most dramatic situations in the piece. La 
Roque, with the hope of winning back his truant mis- 
tress, who, still loving him, has cast him off for a 
wealthy suitor, takes Eve into confidence, and induces 
her to let him make feigned love to her. Sybil, who 



"OLD LOVE AND NE W FOR TUNE." \ g i 

has guessed Eve's secret, surmises that her sufferance 
of La Roque's addresses is intended at once as a tri- 
umph over herself and a lure to Sir Archibald. Irri- 
tated to madness by the assumed provocation, she 
reproaches Eve with her treacherous and unmaidenly 
arts : — 

" The blush, the panting bosom and the tear .... 

A trick of trade ! 

To pique your gray protector's jealousy ; 

When I see 

Your gradual heavenly smile, and hear your voice 
Drawl out its smooth and hypocritic psalm, 
'Tis more than generous nature can endure." 

Eve, at first barely comprehending their drift, 
answers these taunts meekly; but when they culmi- 
nate in an insinuation of her willingness to accept a 
baser place than that of wife, the slander, which 
amounts to a sentence of exile, rouses her to indignant 
recrimination : — 

" You stir not hence — and, if need be, not wed — 
Till this be cleared between us. Stand in- the light ! 
Repeat your taunt, and look me in the face . . . 
. . . You dare not, Sybil ! There is still a touch 
Of woman in your nature ! 

Sybil. Woman, stung 

By most intolerable wrong. 

Eve. And whose 

The wrong, and whose the sting ? Your own proud heart I 

Is it not enough 

Yourself have cast to the winds the richest store 
Which ever Heaven on thankless mortal showered? — 
.With your own frantic hands have riven the ties 
Of household blessing, and of virgin love ? 



1 82 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

And is the dark and dismal wreck too small, 
Or lacks there wider ruin to content 
The insatiate fury gnawing at your heart? 

And you with cold and wicked words 

Would tarnish my good name, and drive me forth 

To the one refuge open, whatsoe'er 

The sorrow and the storm. Content you, Sybil ! 

Content your pride. The arrow hath struck home. 

When maiden turns on maiden, then the world 

Is so disjoint, 'twere best at once to pass 

To the unslandering silence of the shroud. 

Go, and be decked ! Go ! barter for base things 

Your stainless beauty ! I can weep for you. 

My grave is better than your bridal bed !" 

This extract is perhaps an unusually favorable 
specimen of Chorley's dramatic vein in the play, but 
fairly represents its style, which, if unequal in power, 
is uniformly clear, and occasionally rises into dignity. 
As a reading play, it may be open to the objection 
made to it by the author's friend, Mr. Harness (after a 
warm eulogy of its " delightful style and moral 
sense ") of having " too much story ; " but this does 
not seem to have been felt in representation. Other 
friends, to whom it was shown in MS., were more 
enthusiastic in their praise; among them Miss Mit- 
ford, whose own dramatic success entitled her to fore- 
cast with some confidence the chances of a fellow- 
playwright. The letters from which the following 
extracts are made are undated, according to the 
writer's wont, but must be anterior to 1846. The day 
after, first hearing it read, she wrote as follows : — 

" My very dear Friend : — 

" Between crying and excitement, I never closed my 
eyes all night, and can hardly see out of them to-day : (Jane 



LET TER FR OM MISS MI TFORD. \ g 3 

declared that the next time I went to Mr. Chorlev's she 
would provide two pocket-handkerchiefs) ; and, as I would 
fain share all such troubled joys with one who dearly loves 
them, Miss Barrett, I have to entreat that you will let her 
see l Sir Archibald.' She is most desirous of the favor, and 
will esteem it as it deserves. You could hardly have a 
reader of more true sensibility to beauty, or more thoroughly 
willing to admire all that is sweet, and true, and tender, in 
you especially, of whom she has heard so much. ... I 
can think of nothing but that play. I am as sure of a high 
success as I should have been with ' Virginius,' or ' Wil- 
liam Tell,' or ' The Honeymoon ' — the three greatest plays 
of this century ; yours is better than either. Be sure to tell 
me what Macready says." 

Sometime later she wrote again : — 

" The recollection of that play is as vivid as if I had 
read it only yesterday, and so it will continue. Certain 
things burn themselves in upon the memory and the heart, 
and there they are for life. I am sure of the success of that 
lovely play whenever you find a stage to produce it — not 
caring very much about the actors. It will take care of 
itself." 

The writer's shrewd perception was not at fault. 
The piece was accepted for the Surrey Theatre, Mr. 
Creswick playing the principal part, and the perform- 
ance (Feb. 1850) was a thorough success: " carefully 
listened to, well applauded, and myself called for at 
the end," as Chorley's journal commemorates. The 
press was fairly appreciative. Congratulatory letters 
poured in from all his friends, Mr. Browning writing 
from Florence to express the warm gratification of 



1 84 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



Mrs. .browning and himself, and rally him upon having 
been prematurely despondent about his " old luck," 
of which the spell was surely now broken. By an 
oversight on the part of the manager, the necessary 
licence of the Lord Chamberlain had not been 
obtained ; and when the play was withdrawn from the 
bills on the day after his triumph, Chorley's half- 
serious, half-jesting belief that he was doomed to 
failure seemed really justified. But the difficulty was 
soon got over, and the piece enjoyed an honorable 
tenure of popular favor. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Private and Social Life from 1841 to 1851. — Residence in Victoria 
Square. — An affaire du ctzur — Artistic friendships. — Mrs. Browning. 
■ — Sir William Molesworth. — George B. Maule. — Travels. — Extracts 
from Journals. — Notes on pictures. — Professor Bendemann. — 
Kaulbach. — Letters and Sonnets in " Athenaeum." — Last letter 
from Mendelssohn. — Visit to Interlachen. — List of acquaintances. 
— Langtree. — Thomas Campbell. — Rejection of offer of marriage. 
— Pressure of calamities. — Illness of his sister. — Death of Mrs. 
Chorley. 

THE bachelor-partnership which Chorley had en- 
joyed with Mr. Reeve for nearly four years was 
determined by the latter's marriage in the winter of 
1841 ; and, in default of finding another companion- 
ship so agreeable under the same roof, Chorley gave 
up the lodgings, and took a house of his own, No. 15, 
Victoria Square, where he resided for the next ten 
years. This relapse into solitariness told unfavorably 
on his spirits, and before he had time to become 
reconciled to the change, they experienced a fresh 
access of depression, consequent on the unexpected 
marriage of a distinguished artiste of his acquaintance, 
whose fascinations had tempted him to indulge in 
dreams which that event dispelled. The announce- 
ment gave occasion to this outburst of reflection on 
the peril of forming artistic intimacies : — 

" One gives out so much more sympathy to them than 
to those of any other class ; one gets back so much less. 



1 86 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

They are not things for long leases ! ... If one could, how 
much the best would it be to live totally alone ! I think I 
have had to uncoil my tendrils so often, that I shall come to 
this before very long— to the smooth face which tells noth- 
ing, and the smooth heart which feels little ! " 

The mood in which this was written was very short- 
lived, and however prudent the reflection may have 
been, it had no practical effect whatever on the writer's 
future conduct. Among his closest intimacies through 
life were those which he formed with men and women 
more or less eminent in some one of'the various call- 
ings consecrated to Art ; and this period was as rich 
in such intimacies as any. His friends of former 
years, Mr. Procter, Mr. Browning, Mendelssohn, Ken- 
yon, Miss Mitford, and Lady Blessington, were re- 
tained, and names not less illustrious in literature than 
Mrs. Browning, in music and the drama than M. Liszt 
and Madame Viardot Garcia, were added to the num- 
ber. To the record of his friendship with the first- 
named only of these can publication justifiably be 
given, and this is, unfortunately, more than usually 
incomplete. No sketch, however, can fail to interest 
which, like the following, contributes a particle to our 
knowledge of so remarkable a woman : — ■ 

" Mrs. Browning and her writings claim affectionate 
commemoration on the part of those who knew her person- 
ally, and consider the high place she must ever hold among 
the recognized poetesses of this country. In the first class 
only five can be named — -Joanna Baillie and Miss Mitford, 
in right of their tragedies (the former, too, one of Great 
Britain's most exquisite lyrists) ; Mrs. Hemans, the musical, 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



1 8 7 



high-hearted, and impassioned ; and herself — less complete 
in execution, it may be, than the three women of genius 
already named, but bolder in imagination and deeper in 
learning, with a wider (and wilder) flow of inspiration than 
any of those with whom she is here classed. She has a 
place of her own — rare, noble, daring, and pure beyond re- 
proach — in the Golden Book of gifted women. There has 
been only one since, Adelaide Anne Proctor, less ambitious, 
perhaps, than her predecessors, but, as a lyrist, more com- 
plete, more delicate, not less original therefore, than any 
among them, whose verses have a beauty and a finish that 
owe nothing to any model. 

" It must be at least thirty years ago that I was startled 
by a new pleasure — a published ballad, signed, I think, with 
only initials — in ' The New Monthly Magazine ' — ' The 
Romaunt of Margret.' I got it by heart: if I copied it 
once, I copied it ten times, and must have made myself a 
nuisance, as immature enthusiasts are apt to do, by talking 
of it, in season and out of season as .an appearance of a 
strange, seizing, original genius. I was doubted and put 
aside accordingly, in obedience to English law and usage, 
which (as it were) make us set our teeth and lean our backs 
against the door whenever the same is to be opened to a 
real novelty. The chance, however, that. brought me to the 
knowledge of that munificent man and indulgent friend, 
John Kenyon, Miss Barrett's relative, brought me also the 
privilege of writing to one whom I so sincerely admired, and 
of being on the list of those to whom she was willing to 
write. 

" In fhose days no other intercourse was possible ; for 
she was an invalid — thought to be a hopeless one — as such, 
not to be intruded on, (were the candidates as persevering, 
gifted, and charming as the. American ' interviewers ') save 
by a very few old friends. 



1 88 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

" Her letters ought to be published. In power, versa- 
tility, liveliness, and Jinesse ; in perfect originality of glance, 
and vigor of grasp at every topic of the hour; in their 
enthusiastic preferences, prejudices, and inconsistencies, I 
have never met with any, written by men or by women, more 
brilliant, spontaneous, and characteristic. This was her 
form of conversation. 1 have never done a duty more 
against the grain than in restoring those addressed to me to 
their rightful possessor — the true poet whom she married, 
after an intimacy suspected by none save a very few, under 
circumstances of no ordinary romance, and in marrying 
whom she secured for the residue of her life an emancipation 
from prison and an amount of happiness delightful to think 
of, as falling to the lot of one who, from a darkened chamber, 
had still exercised such a power of delighting others. It 
was more like a faery tale than anything in real life I have 
ever known, to read, one morning, in the papers, of her 
marriage with the author of ' Paracelsus,' and to learn, in the 
course of the day, that not only was she married, but that 
she was absolutely on her way to Italy. The energy and 
resolution implied were amazing on the part of one who had 
long, as her own poems tell us, resigned herself to lie down 
and die. I cannot recollect when I have been more moved 
and excited by any surprise, beyond the circle of my imme- 
diate hopes and fears. 

" Every letter of hers from Florence told me of one pros- 
pect after another brightening, of one hope after another 
fulfilled — told with a piquant originality and prejudice not 
to be over-stated or under-praised. 

" I never met Mrs. Browning face to face till after her re- 
turn to England. The time is too recent for me to tell how we 
met — as correspondents who had become friends. And her 
indulgent friendship never failed me to the last, in spite of 
serious differences of opinion concerning a matter which sh6' 



"AURORA LEIGH." 1 89 

took terribly to heart — the strange weird question of mes- 
merism, including clairvoyance. To the marvels of these two 
phenomena (admitting both as incomplete discoveries) she 
lent an ear as credulous as her trust was sincere and her 
heart high-minded. But with women far more experienced 
in falsity than one so noble and one who had been so seclu- 
ded from the world as herself, after they have once crossed 
the threshold, there is seldom chance of after-retreat. Only 
they become bewildered by their tenacious notions of loyalty. 
It is over these very best and most generous of their sex 
that impostors have the most power. They are no matches, 
as men are, for those miserable creatures who creep about 
with insinuating manners, and would pass off legerdemain, 
the tricks of cup-and-ball, for real, portentous discoveries. 

" I have never seen one more nobly simple, more 
entirely guiltless of the feminine propensity of talking for 
effect, more earnest in assertion, more gentle yet pertinacious 
in difference, than she was. Like all whose early nurture 
has chiefly been from books, she had a child's curiosity 
regarding the life beyond her books, co-existing with opin- 
ions accepted as certainties concerning things of which 
(even with the intuition of genius) she could knew little. 
She was at once forbearing and dogmatic, willing to accept 
differences, resolute to admit no argument; without any 
more practical knowledge of social life than a nun might 
have, when, after long years, she emerged from her cloister 
and her shroud. How she used her experiences as a great 
poetess, is to be felt and is evidenced -in her ' Aurora Leigh,' 
after every allowance has been made for an extreme fear- 
lessness in certain passages of the story and forms of 
expression, and that want of finish in execution with which 
almost all her efforts are chargeable. 

" The success of ' Aurora Leigh ' (with all its drawbacks) 
was immediate, wide, and, I conceive, is one likely to last. 



190 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 



The noble and impassioned passages which printed them- 
selves on memory as I hurried through the tale, carried along 
by its deep interest, the brilliancy of allusion, the felicity of 
description, separate it from any effort of the kind which I 
could name. Those who care for comparison may come to 
something like a right appreciation of this poem, on com- 
paring it with efforts in the same form by M. de Lamartine, 
or an English novel in verse which followed it, by the accom- 
plished but imitative author of ' Lucille.' In Mrs. Brown- 
ing's ballad poems, the same pre-eminence in fantasy maybe 
ascribed to her. I refer to the ' Rhyme of the Duchess May,' 
'The Brown Rosarie,' * The Romaunt of the Page,' 'Lady 
Geraldine's Courtship,' and ' Bertha in the Lane.' It is idle 
to talk of halting tones and occasional platitudes, (what 
fertile writer has been exempt from them ?) when so much 
vigor or variety are to be counted on the other side of the 
question. Some of Mrs. Browning's minor lyrics can 
hardly be exceeded in beauty and tenderness. The verse 
from one entitled ' Sleeping and Watching,' which begins, 

' And God knows, who sees us twain/ 

has a pathos which will speak to every one who has had 
experience in the darkened chambers of life." 

The only other memorial of one of Chorley's inti- 
mates at this period, which admits of present publica- 
tion, is of a man widely different in intellectual type 
and vocation from those among whom his intimates 
were usually selected — the late Sir William Moles- 
worth. How they became acquainted does not 
appear ; but there were moral qualities in each that 
proved mutually attractive, and united with sufficient 
affinity in their tastes to cement a friendship of which 






SIR Willi A M MOLE S IVOR TH. 



I 9 I 



Chorley was justly proud, and which he has thus 
worthily commemorated : — 

"Among my betters, with whom it has been always my 
desire and my good fortune to live, I have known no man, 
as regards heart, head and capacity, superior to Sir William 
Molesworth. Our acquaintance was strangely made ; but it 
ripened into what I have a right to call a friendship, which 
lasted to the end of his life. That he trusted me I have 
good reason to know ; and howsoever wide apart our pur- 
suits were (one alone excepted — love of flowers and trees), 
'I was never by him made to feel the inferiority of my flimsy 
knowledge to his massive command of the greatest subjects 
which can engage a serious man's attention. I was, from 
first to last, at ease when I was with him, and have not to 
remember a single depreciating word or doubtful look on his 
part. 

" Sir William Molesworth was in no respect brilliant, but 
earnest ; perfect in mastery over every subject he took in 
hand, open to any testimony which interfered with his own 
views ; a man of a high and truthful nature, under the cover 
of whose deeds and strong opinions, call them prejudices, 
the least gifted of those whom he met and habored must 
have felt safe. He was just rather than, habitually gener- 
ous ; but when he chose to be generous, he was munificent, 
and without regard to his good deeds being blazoned. He 
was well aware of his own value, as every sincere man must 
be who has any value at all ; but in private life, never was 
any great man less self-asserting. He seemed to love to rest 
in it by way of enjoyment, not to shew shows or to make 
speeches, on the strength of his position as a man of letters 
or a statesman. 

"It is curious to recall how, as a young leader in the 
Radical party, wealthy to boot, and with an honorable family 



I 9 2 



REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 



name and estate, Sir William Molesworth was pursuecf by 
squadrons of strong-minded women, or terrible mothers, 
' shallow-hearted ' (as Tennyson sings), having daughters to 
whom the name, and the fame, and the position of his wife 
would have been a promotion little short of heavenly advance- 
ment on earth. It is excellent to recollect how quietly he 
put aside everything like control, or intrigue, or suggestion ; 
and, by choosing for himself, secured as complete a happi- 
ness for two married people as the world has ever seen. 
This could not have been more emphatically attested than by 
his testamentary dispositions. 

" A deliberation and persistence, not to say heaviness of 
nature, were among his remarkable characteristics, and had 
no small share in his success. Whatever he attempted to do 
he did thoroughly ; let the thing be ever so great or ever so 
small, the shaping of a course of political service, the gath- 
ering together testimony as regarded Colonial affairs, in 
which field of action he has never been replaced, the fulfil- 
ment of a task no less dry than the editing of the philosoph- 
ical works of Hobbes of Malmesbury, which called down 
on him that rancorous abuse of his opinions, then too fiercely 
used against all those suspected of Liberal heresies by the 
high Tory party — all that he did was thoroughly done. This 
peculiar characteristic was carried out to the most trifling 
occupation. I have seen him for a couple of hours absorbed 
in the solving of a chess problem ; or in disentangling a 
skein of silk, while his mind was steadily pursuing some train 
of thought and speculation. But he never used his accuracy 
as an engine of oppression, as meaner men are too apt to do. 
When, at last, his worth and his weight could be no longer 
overlooked, and he entered the Ministry as responsible for 
the 'Woods and Forests,' the question of a new National 
Gallery was on the carpet. He was resolute not to move in 
it till he was in possession of the fullest information as to the 



SIR Willi AM MOLESWORTH. 



193 



merits and demerits of foreign picture-galleries. How care- 
fully he received, and how patiently he sifted this, I am in 
case to record. He gathered specifications, working plans 
and estimates of what had been the cost, of what was the 
nature, of what the success, of the great European establish- 
ments of the kind, and was preparing to present the result 
of his comparisons to the nation in a tangible form, when 
changes occurred in our administration, and he was promoted 
to the Secretaryship of the Colonies. According to certain 
established principles of English policy and private judg- 
ment, which imply English destructive waste at the expense 
of public money, his successor, as small as he was a great man, 
swept away all the fruits of his care and provision into some 
unseen official closet, where, probably, they may be moul- 
dering at this day, and began anew a series of inquiries and 
perquisitions, just as if the subject was still a virgin subject. 
Corollary. — We have no National Gallery, save a building 
originally penurious and inefficiently patched up, even to this 
present day. 

" From all abominable waste like this, the experience and 
counsel of such men as Sir William Molesworth— were there 
many such — might have protected this country. But the 
name of such is not legion. When he came to be promoted, 
as was inevitable, to his legitimate sphere of action, as 
Colonial Secretary, the frame, by nature not a healthy one, 
was worn out. He had a very few days of consciousness 
of reward, due to a power and probity as priceless as they 
are uncommon, and died peacefully, with perfect conscious- 
ness that he was dying. 

" His sense of humour was not keen, but no man 
delighted in such quaint stories and conundrums as he 
seized and relished more thoroughly than himself. As has 
been often the case, he took a positive pleasure in hearing 
the same tale or jest told over and over again, let him know 
9 



1 94 REMINISCENCES GF C1IDRLEY. 

it ever so well by heart. He would begin it wrong, as chil- 
dren do, with the intention of hearing it corrected. He 
rarely produced or paraded the results of his grave thought 
and deep reading ; but when he did speak, he was apt to 
close the question in debate. 

" It was curious to observe how one so mathematical, 
and so sparingly endowed with the poetic faculty of appre- 
ciation, had so strong a tendency to occupy himself with 
those recondite and mysterious subjects regarding which no 
clear conclusion can be arrived at. He had a theory of 
dreams of his own, which, I think, he put forward in the 
* Westminister Review' during his brief proprietorship of 
that periodical. He was patient and clear in investigating 
the pretensions of mesmerism, separating the phenomena of 
cataleptic sleep from those of pretended clairvoyance, with 
that resolution to sift evidence, and to discriminate betwixt 
truth and falsity, which the more mercurial and imaginative 
seldom retain. He was a willing and diligent reader of 
foreign novels. Without an atom of taste for music, or care 
about the drama above the melodrama, he endured both, in 
indulgence to other persons, but not very willingly. It is 
comical to recall how, after the first performance of ' Le 
Prophete,' he never again entered his own opera box ; 
driven thence, he said, (and, I suspect, not averse to the 
excuse,) by the psalmody of the Three Anabaptists ! 

" But his real enjoyments, as apart from the pleasureable 
cares of ambition, were at home in Cornwall, in the place 
which he had decorated and beautified with the hand of a 
master.* The lovely Italian garden before his house, the 
plantations so choicely adjusted, the long descending ave- 
nue/flanked by a collection of rare firs and evergreens only 
equalled by those of the Pinetum at Dropmore : the hot- 
houses, with their strange, weird-looking orchidaceous 
* Pencarrow. 






GEORGE B. MAULE. jg$ 

plants, were a perpetual source of pleasure to him — the 
pleasure belonging to rich and accurate knowledge. He 
knew every tree he had set ; the quickness of its growth and 
its chances of health or disease were duly noted by him in 
his garden diary; and his deliberate afternoon walks through 
his beautiful grounds were among his pleasantest solitary 
hours of the day — a wholesome relief from the coil and 
cumber of state measures and treaties, the verbiage of blue- 
books to be fathomed, and the strong excitements of politi- 
cal ambition. I have often and again thus walked with him, 
and heard him talk — a pleasure and a privilege not to be 
forgotten. His indulgence and regard for me are among 
the most precious of my recollections. I must change more 
than I hope I ever shall before I cease to be aware of their 
distinction and their value." 

Another and a very close friend of Chorley during 
these years was the late George B. Maule, a man who 
has left no mark by which the world will remem- 
ber him, but who must have possessed mental and 
moral gifts of no ordinary attractiveness to have 
inspired such regret as was occasioned by his sudden 
death in the autumn of 1850. The. qualities which 
endeared him to his associates are well summed up in 
the following entry in Chorley's journal, written after 
receiving the announcement : — 

"Saturday, Sept. z%th, 1850. — A truly heavy day! 
Knocked up by Kenyon, the strangeness of whose appear- 
ance at my bedside did not strike me, till, on my greeting 
him jocularly, * I must check your cheerfulness,' said he, and, 
opening a letter from the consul at Barcelona, communica- 
ted to me the news of poor Maule and Nicholson being 



ig6 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

drowned in a diligence betwixt Barcelona and Valencia. 
The road is along a rock- ledge above the sea, crossed, it 
seems by torrents, one of which must have been swollen by 
the heavy rain, and the wind carried over the vehicle. All 
perished ! It is a loss not to be repaired. I have never 
known a completer man than Maule ; never had to mourn a 
life of greater value, around which more love, respect, and 
confidence had gathered. He had the sweetest temper with- 
out insipidity ; the evenest spirits without becoming weari- 
some. He was considerately kind without protestation ; 
wondrously and accurately versatile in his knowledge, with- 
out a grain of conceit or pedantry. He was strong, punc- 
tual, cheerful, humorous. One reposed in his regard, one 
trusted in his judgment, one would have relied upon his 
testimony had it even been at variance with one's own 
senses. 

" We travelled three times together, and his face in my 
house often supplied the face of one of my own family. He 
was always ready to help, to oblige, to enjoy with one ; and 
his loving sympathy was to me particularly agreeable, from 
its being so undemonstrative. Travelling will never be to 
me the same thing again ; for to him I largely owe .my little 
experience on the subject." 

Travel seems to have been a passion with Maule, 
some of whose letters, addressed to his friend from 
various parts of Europe, are scarcely less detailed than 
the elaborate diaries which Chorley himself was in the 
habit of keeping of his Continental tours. These holi- 
day journeys — three of which were undertaken in com- 
pany with Maule, others with his brother John, Kenyon, 
or Mr. Reeve, and some alone : — were annual occur- 
rences at this period of his life, and form one of its 



CRITICISM ON A PICTURE. 



I 9 7 



brightest chapters. Apart from their additions to his 
fund of musical experience, they contributed largely to 
his general culture. From the observations gathered 
in the course of them were derived some of the most 
striking passages in his best works, and the prevailing 
fidelity of his descriptions of national character and 
local scenery. Though he never exceeded a term of 
two months, and was often obliged to travel over famil- 
iar ground, he contrived to make himself pretty inti- 
mately acquainted with all that is most beautiful and 
memorable in Europe, whether of Nature or Art — 
Swiss mountains, German rivers, and Italian fakes ; the 
architecture, painting, and sculpture of the principal 
cities from Paris to Palermo. Many travellers may 
have seen more, but few can have ever worked harder 
than Chorley on these journeys. Thanks to his early 
self-culture, he was a facile draughtsman, and his 
diaries are interspersed with slight, but often effective, 
sketches of landscape, novelties of architectural design, 
droll faces and costumes, etc., intended to serve as 
aids to a memory already exceptionally retentive. 
Of scenes and pictures which fascinated him, the de- 
scriptions in these volumes are not unfrequently graphic, 
as, for example, the following of Lucas Cranach's 
" Bath of Youth," in the Berlin Gallery, afterwards 
inserted with more elaboration in " Music and Man- 
ners: " 

" On the one side are wagons full of, and pillions laden 
with, old women in every stage of age, ugliness, and decrepi- 
tude, pressing forward with a thirst wonderfully expressed 
towards the magical fountain, gaping with appetite to find 



ig8 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

their beauty and enchantments renewed. In the midst is the 
tank itself, half-filled with withered, naked spectres, half 
with 

"' Young budding virgins, fair and fresh and SM'eet.' 

On the one side, all the ravenous impatience for the transfor- 
mation ; on the other, the languid basking of young beauty, 
conscious, pleased, and indolent ; and behind, a banquet, 
where the fair are pledged by the brave, and boschetti, for the 
telling of love-tales and what-not. I have rarely seen a more 
curious or a deeper picture. There is a grim Gothic truth 
in it not easy to put down in words. It is a piece of life 
seen through a devil's distorting-glass." 

These critical notes on pictures are often marked 
by the same fineness of discrimination that is to be found 
in his best estimates of literature and music. An 
example may be selected from the journal of his visit 
to Rome in 185 1, where, referring to Michael Angelo's 
"Last Judgment," he remarks on the grandeur of 
" those celestially mighty clarion-bearers, who perform 
their function of admission or exclusion without ruth 
or exultation. I think it was Gaudenzio Ferrari who 
made the Angels of Doom look sorrowful. This is 
making them into so many Christs, with complete 
knowledge and perfect sympathies, and thus leaves 
nothing for the Highest. I like the ministry better, 
which is unconscious and unparticipating." 

That Chorley never lost an opportunity of extend- 
ing his acquaintance among artists and men of letters 
has already been seen. His Continental diaries of 
these years are not less interesting than those of earlier 
date in their accounts of his interviews with distin- 



PROFESSOR BENDEMANN. 



I 99 



guished members of both callings to whom he obtained 
introductions. A visit to Professor Bendemann, at 
Dresden, is thus described: — 

" Bendemann is reputed to be the first of German mod- 
ern artists. He has a thin face, of a sweet and melancholy 
expression, large, intense, thoughtful eyes, of a painters 
keenness and poetry — a countenance not wholly unlike 
Weber's in its pattern, with mild, gentlemanly manners. . . . 
I found him in his atelier at the great hall of the palace, 
which he has been employed to decorate with frescoes. He 
was at work on a very high scaffolding, without a cravat, in 
a blue blouse, and with a long pipe. ... I had an ex- 
ceedingly pleasant half-hour of conversation with him, 
though I could not, I fear, come far enough upon his own 
ground to be acceptable to him ; and I will never talk more 
than I understand. There is a sort of frieze in compart- 
ments running round the room, which he is filling with a 
series of paintings imaging the progress of human life, be- 
ginning with the Paradise of Nature, when there was no 
death, and ending with the Paradise of Redemption, when 
life eternal shall be restored, and between the two, embrac- 
ing the ages of man from the cradle to the grave. Some of 
these were not complete, but those which were, were very 
beautiful — a dance of children, for instance, and a group 
representing a wedding, all youth and joy, and motion and 
hope. . . . Besides this, he showed me two very noble 
cartoons of single figures of sages, lawgivers, etc., with 
which he is going to surround the hall. Zoroaster and 
Solomon were the subjects. The one, with the Magian cen- 
ser in his hand, was very grand, and Chaldaic, and impos- 
ing, and, if forcibly wrought out, will make the breath stop 
of those who look at it. But dare I say that it is this very 
want of forcible working-out which makes the long step 



200 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

between the modern Germans and the great ancients whom 
they so nobly aspire to approach ? They make ' shadows 
of beauty, shadows of power : ' the others called up real 
kings and apostles, and the real Divinity, who needs but 
touch the hills to make them smoke ! I know next to noth- 
ing of the works of modern German painters ; but the few I 
have seen appear to me, with all their beauty of drawing and 
sentiment, to want body. I like Bendemann very much. 
He was very patient with my platitudes ; and I liked him, 
who bears the reputation of being among the first painters, 
telling me that Kaulbach, of Munich, was their first man, 
and speaking of his works with such enthusiasm." 

When at Munich on another occasion (in 1841) 
Chorley obtained an introduction to Kaulbach, whom 
he found at his studio in a country-house in the 
environs. 

" He is a very thin man, with a little long, glossy, black 
hair smoothed over his forehead . . . with deep, ten- 
der, shining, humorous eyes. ... In his manner a 
mixture of simplicity, friendliness, fun, and enthusiasm. 
. . . He was painting a man handsomer than himself, 
but not so much of a genius. . . . Several magnificent 
full-length portraits were about ; one of a falconer. The 
one on which he was occupied was the chief of a company 
of Lanz-knechts. Their originals were young artists who, 
with their wives, had, last winter, appeared to the number 
of two hundred in a pageant at the theatre, on the return of 
Prince Max ; and the king had commanded three of their 
portraits for Schleissheim. ' After all,' said Kaulbach, ' it 
was an honor to paint such fine fellows.' One that was 
finished struck me more than any modern portrait I have 
ever seen : the full-length of a knight, with sanguine com- 



KA ULBA CII. 



201 



plexion and red hair ; a metal bonnet on the head, a cuirass, 
a scarlet dress slashed with white, and a gorgeous furred 
mantle. When Kaulbach drew up the blind, and let in the 
light upon it, it seemed to float out of the canvas with its 
force and brilliancy. . . . We saw some illustrations to 
' Faust,' which I did not like. They were clever, but grim 
and ungraceful compared with those by Retszch — and yet 
the one has no honor here ! We saw, too, three admirable 
designs for a new edition of ' Reinecke der Fuchs.' . . . 
But the most remarkable picture of all was an enormous 
cartoon of the Destruction of Jerusalem. Above are the 
three prophets watching the angels, who are sounding the 
trumpets and pouring out the vials of wrath at their feet — 
noble winged figures of a superb Apocalyptic sublimity. In 
the centre, to the left, the Jews, in all the agonies of terror, 
distress, famine, dissension, murder, and blasphemy ; the 
degrees being indicated by a mother entreated of her chil- 
dren, the high-priest about to slay himself, and the Wandering 
Jew spurred on his way by fiends above his head — the last 
free Israelite who will issue from that scene. To the ex- 
treme left, Titus riding calmly into the city with an air of 
solemn astonishment at the frenzy around him, and the por- 
tents which attend his conquest. The most magnificent 
subject of all time, done (may we not say it?) full justice to. 
All the effete and pedantic efforts which good King Louis 
has called forth are assuredly well bestowed, if they have 
formed and fostered a school of Art of which such a noble 
work was the sole result." 

The foregoing are among the most noteworthy 
extracts from Chorley's journals ; but it would be 
impossible without considerable expenditure of space 
to give an adequate notion of their diversified con- 
tents, which range from aesthetic criticism to table- 
9* 



202 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

d'hote gossip, and from reflections on national traits to 
minutiae of personal experience. More amusing, if 
not more worthy of preservation, are the letters in 
verse addressed from abroad to two or three of his 
intimate friends. An extract from one of the best of 
these (inserted entire in " Music and Manners ") has 
already been given. Another, of which Lady Bles- 
sington was the subject as well as the recipient, con- 
tains a few good verses. It accompanied a pipe-bowl, 
painted with her portrait, which he had happened to 
meet with in Switzerland : — 



'Tis charming, wheresoe'er I go — ■ 

Whether my track through fickle France is, 
Or 'neath the Splugen's crags and snow, 
By Como's lake I learn to know 

The land of lemons and romances — 



" To meet your face, to hear your name ; 

Nay — where the North lone wastes discloses, 
And daylight's but a blubber-flame, 
Dull Esquimaux repeat the same 

In intervals of rubbing noses. 

" Grim boors delight your face to see, 

By Don and Dnieper, Drave and Dwina ; 

And long-eyed Yang or prim Pee-Lee, 

Simpering above their yellow tea, 

Praise your smooth picture on their china. 



1 Westward, enchanting stone and stock, 
You hold all Congress fast in fetters ; 
And Jonathan, in citron frock, 
Carves ' Blessington ' on every rock, 
And for a county sells her letters. 



HO LI DA V TOUR IN ITALY. 203 

** 'Tis well, 'tis fifc this should be so, 

For is't not, sure, a sacred duty, 
That heart like yours o'er Earth should go 
On angel mission, to and fro, 

Thus symbolled by its outward beauty ? 



" Then take, nor scorn this humble clay, 
In vulgar guise a truth expressing, 
That even in our ungrateful day, 
Mankind, for all the cynics say, 
Still know the value of a blessing." 
Twixt Zurich and Brugg, Oct. 5, 1841. 



In the letters addressed to his friends in Liver- 
pool, the sense of delight and profit which Chorley 
derived from these holiday tours is expressed in 
homelier prose. Here is an extract from one that de- 
scribes his first impressions of Italy, which he entered 
by the plains of Lombardy :— 

" The mulberry-trees, festooned by vines — so many 
Dryad's hands all round in a choral dance — are like things 
on an old frieze. Then there is the maize ; and there are 
the dour, enormous, white bullocks, plunging and plodding 
on their way, with a disproportionately small load behind 
them ; and again and again, face after face and form after 
form to be encountered among the roadside peasantry that 
help (without affectation) to make one positively drunk with 
beauty. I knew Italy well before I saw it ; but it has a 
foison of everything rich and goodly which no preconception 
can give. I do not know what is henceforth to become of 
my hunger and thirst for color ; but this I do know that no 
life is complete without the eye having once had its feast 
here." 



204 REMINISCENCES OF CIIORLEY. 

Writing to another friend after his Italian tour of 
1845, h e sa y s : — " 

" I am almost afraid to boast of health and strength, but 
never had so much cause as at the present moment. What 
I did in Italy seems almost fabulous on looking back to it, 
but for the two thick journals which assure me that ' in the 
body or out of the body,' as the Swedenborgians say, I did 
walk over the Stelvio, and (even a harder exercise) that I 
did stand some ten hours a day on my feet in the Florence 
churches and galleries. These are, perhaps, the only pleas- 
ures (besides the remembered intercourse o£ friends) of 
which nothing save the loss of faculties can deprive one, 
since they bring no after regrets as to the expenditure of 
time, money, or the like ; and, for one leading a life like 
mine, they are very precious as stores of material, illustra- 
tion, etc., etc. It was rather tantalizing to be so near Rome, 
but, D. V., one will take other journeys. How often I 
thought of you among the pictures I won't pretend to tell 
you. I was very favorably circumstanced for enjoying them 
in some respects ; a sort of committee of English artists 
having gone to Florence to study the varieties of the old 
fresco painters, with whom I went about a good deal, taking 
care, moreover, to get some solitary observation ; since, after 
a while of such companionship, one is dangerously apt to 
find one's self leavened with prejudices and distinctions more 
technical than poetical ; and, however needful training be, 
there is such a thing as private judgment — the throwing 
one's self loose of which, ends in the cant^ not the sincerity, 
of admiration. And nowadays especially, the immoderate 
fashion for the very earliest schools of art seems to me very 
apt to mislead and narrow one. It is not very easy work to 
keep one's ears very wide open to all enthusiasts, and after- 
wards to see with one's very ow7i eyes." 



LAST LETTER FROM MENDELSSOHN. 205 

One of his journeys, the most enjoyed at the time, 
was the most mournful in retrospect — that of 1847, 
when he spent a few days at Interlachen, where Men- 
delssohn had gone to recover from the severe shock 
occasioned by the death of his sister, Madame Hensel. 
The composer's last letter to Chorley is thence dated, 
and though its strict connection is with the musical 
topics adverted to in another chapter, may be more 
fitly inserted here : — N 

" Hotel en Interlachen * 
" 19th July, 1847. 

" My Dear Chorley : — 

" I write these lines to thank you for the letter I found 
here, and to beg you will not grow tired with being bored 
with my projects. The thing came thus : while I passed 
through Zurich, Mr. Hermann had a conversation with me, 
told me that they wanted something of my music for the 
opening of their new room, and added that he was sure you 
would feel interested in the matter, and as to the poetry, 
would either write it or, at least, give your advice, etc., etc. 
Of course nothing could be more agreeable to me than this 
intelligence ; but pray believe me, that I would not have 
made him write to you without his having begun to talk 
of it, and this just for the same reasons with which you 
begin your letter to me. Well, then, be that as it may, have 
many thanks for your letter, and for the advice it contains. 
I shall read Wordsworth's poem as soon as I can get it, and 
perhaps, I shall hear of other ideas from you. For the 
present moment, I am not yet able to think seriously of new 
projects and of new music. The very sad time I have just 
passed is still so much connected with all my ideas, that I 
can only begin by degrees to go on with my life and music 

* Inscribed by Chorley : " The last letter I had from him." 



206 REMINISCENCES OF CIIORLEY. 

as I was accustomed to do. This is also the reason that I 
did not yet write to you and thank you for the opera-sketch, 
which I read and re-read several times, and liked it very 
much, and am almost sure that something must be made of 
it ; but in happier days, if God is willing ! Excuse these 
nichts-sagende lines, but I wanted not to leave your letter or 
your kindness without an answer and without my thanks. 
Always yours very truly, 

" Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy." 

Chorley's visit occurred about a month after the 
receipt of this letter. In his " Modern German Music " 
(Vol. ii., pp. 383-400) he has chronicled these "last 
days of Mendelssohn " with genuine pathos. The 
composer's worn and aged aspect, the forebodings of 
death which were haunting his mind, the fitful bursts 
of hope and energy which alternated with these 
moods of depression, as he discussed the various pro- 
jects referred to in the foregoing letter,* combined 
with the brightness and beauty of the season and the 
scene, to leave an impression on Chorley's mind too 
vivid " for a topic, or a trait, or a characteristic ex- 
pression to be forgotten." The last day which they 
spent together at Ringgenberg, a hamlet by the lake 
of Brienz, in the little church of which Mendelssohn 
played the organ to him for nearly an hour, was 
thenceforth a sacred memory. 

Mendelssohn's death occurred within a month or 
two after Chorley's return to England. He records 
the blow (Nov. 19th, 1847) as having — 

* Wordsworth's " Ode on the Power of Sound," which Chorley had 
suggested as suitable for a cantata, is the poem alluded to. 



MENDELSSOHN'S DEATH. 



207 



" almost shaken me loose of all interest to come in music. 
I think, take him for all in all, he was the most perfect artist- 
musician whom the world has seen. . . . He had 
everything — fame, fortune, freshness of spirit — was as good 
as he was great." 

Writing to Liverpool at the close of the year, he 
says :— 

" This has been a very hard autumn. I suffered much 
indeed from the loss of my dear friend Mendelssohn, to 
whom I was personally much attached, and with whom I 
had spent two of his last well days in Switzerland in Sep- 
tember. We were to have gone to Liverpool together next 
autumn, for the opening of the new Philharmonic Concert- 
room." 

This loss was the heaviest that had befallen him 
since the death of Mr. Benson Rathbone, and was the 
more keenly felt that Mendelssohn was within a few 
months of his own age, and that both had looked for- 
ward with mutual sympathy to the prospect of linking 
their names in connection with the art which was the 
common object of their love. 

The future was dark with other clouds, but the 
present was brightened by pleasures of no mean order. 
The list of distinguished persons, English and foreign, 
with whom during these years Chorley was on terms 
of good-fellowship, as yet falling short of friendship, 
but extending in a greater or less degree to the inter- 
change of intellectual sympathy, embraced some of the 
best known among men and women of letters : — Mr. 
Carlyle, Charles Dickens, Mr. Milnes (Lord Houghton), 



208 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

Douglas Jerrold, M. Tourgueneff, Herr Freiligrath, Miss 
Martineau, and Mrs. Jameson. With the four last 
named in this list Chorley was in the habit of corre- 
sponding, and was appealed to more than once for kind 
offices, which brought the writers and himself into 
closer accord. No one was readier to lend such friendly- 
aid as he was able, whenever it was needed. Literary 
services were those most commonly asked of and ren- 
dered by him. Occasionally he was called upon to 
undertake the responsibility of becoming chaperon to a 
promising aspirant in literature or art. The tragic 
story of one such tyro who was intrusted to his care is 
narrated in the following passage of reminiscence. 
The circumstances occurred in 1845. 

" One of my most pathetic recollections has to do with 
the life and death of a young man who came up to London 
to busy himself in literature as I had done, fuller of dreams, 
however, than of powers for their fulfilment. He was com- 
mitted to me by Miss Martineau, with whom I was then an 
habitual correspondent, and who must be always commem- 
orated with esteem and regard, howsoever capricious . her 
prejudices have proved, as one eager to promote what 
seemed right to herself and what was helpful to others. The 
list of those whom she befriended substantially, without any 
vanity concerned in it, would be a long one. Among others 
was poor Mr. Langtree. I may name him because I have 
reason to believe that he had not a relative or kinsman whom 
he could claim in any part of the world. A brother, his 
only one, had set out to Australia, there to make his fortune. 
The ship was never heard of more. 

" It possessed this youth, as it has done others before 
him, to come up to London and maintain himself by his pen. 



LANGTREE. 



209 



There were indications in his writing that, with time and 
patience to abide the struggle, he might have done so, how- 
ever slenderly, and the more, because he was patient, modest, 
industrious, and not vexed by the terrible demon of self-as- 
sertion, which has wrought such fearful havoc in the lives 
and fortunes of self- accepted men of genius. He was mak- 
ing his way quietly, and doing the best he could to cultivate 
himself and enrich his stores of thought and knowledge, 
when his health suddenly and ominously failed him. He 
was sitting with me in the twilight one summer evening, 
when he was suddenly stricken down by a warning beyond 
mistake, the symptoms of consumption in its worst form. I 
did what I could for the moment, but it was clearly a bad 
case — frightful and costly illness of a man without friends 
and without resource. 

" In tho^e days there was an establishment in the New 
Road (now closed) — * The Sanatorium,' originally organized 
by Dr. Southwood Smith, where, for a moderate payment, 
invalids, averse to the publicity of hospitals, could receive 
care and medical treatment. Poor Langtree was placed 
there; and I cannot now (the story is one of so many years 
ago) recollect without emotion how he was sustained there 
during many weary months of decay. But among others of 
the few who were as ready as they were abundant to help 
him was my dear, genial friend, John Kenyon. I may name 
him, for he is now no more. And 1 must not forget how my 
own servant, a Bavarian, who went to and fro of his own 
unsolicited accord, established near the sick youth's bedside 
one of his own treasures — a wooden clock from the Black 
Forest, to tell the poor fading man the hours as they went 
on. The heart grows full and the eyes dim as one recalls 
these things. The generosity of every one, great or small, 
about this poor, dying, almost nameless man, is a thing never 
to be forgotten. 



210 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

" The end came after a long time of weariness and pros- 
tration. The poor fellow died, and was laid in the Maryle- 
bone burial-ground, not in a pauper grave, but with a stone 
over his remains, to tell any one who might haply come to 
enquire for him where was his place of rest. I walked behind 
the body to the grave on a bright sunny morning, the only 
mourner. Anything more strange and more sad I cannot 
recall." 

Among the literary acquaintances made at this 
period, whose characters Chorley had opportunities of 
studying without feeling any inducement to convert 
them into friends, was the poet Campbell. They had 
first met in 1837, when Chorley describes him as — 

" A little man, with a shrewd eye, and a sort of pedago- 
guish, parboiled voice ; plenty to say for himself, especially 
about other people, and not restrained from saying whatever 
seemed good to him by any caution ; speaking with a violent 
antipathy of Theodore Hook (by the way, the new editor of 
the 'New Monthly Magazine '), and yet not more violently 
than the latter deserves ; dressing up his good stories, and 
looking about him while he did them, with the unmistakeable 
air of a diner-out, which is so amusing — more amusing, by 
the way, than agreeable. To myself he was very complais- 
ant." 

What else Chorley knew and thought of Campbell 
is told in the following sketch :— 

" It would be hard to name an English poet of greater 
refinement and sweetness, alternating with outbreaks of the 
most manly vigor and high heroic spirit, than Thomas Camp- 
bell. It would be equally hard to name an author of any 
country whose personality was more entirely at variance 



CAMPBELL. 2 1 1 

with his poetry than his — at least, during the second half 
of his life. A man, be his habits what they may, does not 
deteriorate uniformly and steadily from every promise and 
sign of grace which he may have shown in earlier years, 
without showing, from time to time, some flashes of the olden 
brightness, let them be ever so few and far between. What 
I saw and knew of Campbell, at least, made it very hard to 
credit the possibility of there having been days much better 
essentially. If such had been the case, his latter state was 
not one so much of enfeeblement as of metamorphosis — of 
what was pure having become gross — of what was intellec- 
tual and appreciative losing itself in a prosy and common- 
place stupidity. 

" I first heard of him when he was delivering his lectures 
on Poetry at Liverpool, more than forty years ago. The 
extent to which these were overrated, in consequence of the 
beauty, power, and finish of the poet's poetry, only revealed 
itself when the poet's prose came to be published. They 
are as completely forgotten to-day as if they had never been 
— the fate, perhaps, of all lecturers ; but Campbell was pro- 
digiously lionised in circles which, I have always felt, were 
too prone to lionise. How all ease, grace, and nature of 
intercourse are destroyed by the extravagance of social idol- 
atry ; how talk for effect must be the consequence of 

' Wonder with a foolish face of praise/ 

have been truths as clear as day to me, ever since I was in 
a case to observe and compare. Then I could but stare, as 
a very young boy, and remark how the best, and most refined, 
and most beautiful of men and women laid themselves at 
the lecturer's feet. Of himself, at that time, I recollect 
nothing; but he must have had something, in show, at least, 
better to offer in return than the gifts and graces displayed 
by him later in London — the paltry conversation, when it 



212 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

was not coarsened by convivial excesses to a point which 
would not to-day be endured, were the poet thrice as 
god-like as he was. In fact, as years went on, Campbell 
slipped out of society as steadily as though he had been a 
false prophet, and not the author of ' The Pleasures of 
Hope,' ' Hohenlinden,' 'The Battle of the Baltic,' 'Ye 
Mariners of England,' ' The Exile of Erin,' ' O'Connor's 
Child,' and ' The Last Man ' — poems which will endure so 
long as a single lover of imperishable thought, feeling and 
fancy, enshrined in most musical verse, shall be left in Eng- 
land. Their spell is strong now, even in this age of jargon, this 
time when ' whitings' eyes ' by so many are permitted to pass 
as 'pearls.' 

" He was my neighbor in Victoria Square, Pimlico, during 
the last years passed by him in England, and was willing to 
bestow much of his leisure on a poetaster so much younger 
a man as I was. I can hardly describe how painful it was 
to be sought by one whose notice should have been such an 
honor, but whom it was hardly possible for youthful fastid- 
iousness and want of charity to endure as a companion. It 
was woeful, weary work, unredeemed, so far as I recollect, 
by one passing flash of the spirit which had shone with such 
brilliancy and beauty in the verse ; and great was the relief 
when be withdrew from London ; — to die, in all but utter 
neglect, at Boulogne. 

"One friend, however, Campbell retained, who believed in 
and ministered to him till the end came — the friend, as I 
have grateful reason to commemorate, of many more obscure 
literary men — Dr. Beattie, himself an author of modest pre- 
tensions, and who, in the fulness of sincere admiration, 
wrote the only English biography of the poet which has 
appeared. It must not be forgotten, when writing about 
Campbell, that the poet of ' The Pleasures of Hope,' like 
the poet of ' The Pleasures of Memory,' was from first to 



A SUCCESSION OF SORRO WS. 2 1 3 

last fond of children. So it should be with those alike who 
look forward or look back." 



The concluding years of this section of Chorley's 
life registered a succession of sorrows, by which retro- 
spect and prospect alike were darkened. In 1844 
occurred a second misadventure in love, more serious 
than the first — the rejection of the only offer of mar- 
riage he ever made. The literary failures and 
musical perplexities elsewhere adverted to were not 
calculated to remove his depression ; though, com- 
pared with the troubles which followed, they were but 
passing clouds. In 1847, occurred the death of Men- 
delssohn ; that of Maule in 1850. The next blow fell 
amidst his own family, with whom he had of late been 
in constant intercourse ; his mother and sister having 
removed from Liverpool in 1845, an d at this time 
residing with his brother John, in Chester Square. 
The sister, to whom he was tenderly attached, was 
here stricken with disease, an affection of the spine, 
which for the rest of her life — more than twelve years 
— rendered her a hopeless cripple. His mother was 
spared the pain of witnessing the protraction of 
this suffering, as her death occurred in the autumn of 
185 1, during Chorley's absence from England. 

An increase in his income, which resulted from his 
mother's death, brought some alleviation in " the sense 
of easier fortunes." This was followed by a change 
of residence, which operated as a healthy distraction 
from the past, and inaugurated a brighter future. 
The events of the twenty years which he spent in 
Eaton Place West must be narrated in another chapter. 



CHAPTER X. 

Musical criticism between 1841 and 1851 — Recognition of his influence 
— Mercenary propositions — Letter from Meyerbeer — Employment 
as a librettist — Disappointments and vexations — Intimacies with 
M. Liszt and Madame Viardot — Chopin — Sonnet on his death — 
Berlioz — Relations between artists and critics — A protege. 

THE chapter devoted to the consideration of Chor- 
ley's earlier career as a musical critic has neces- 
sarily anticipated much that strictly belongs to the 
history of his later life. To the observations there 
made upon the general characteristics of his profes- 
sional workmanship, nothing material need here be 
added. Whatever increase of acumen may be dis- 
cernible in the average tone of his judgments in the 
" Athenaeum " at this period is not of a nature to 
commend itself to the apprehension of untrained 
eyes, and I shall not risk the failure of attempting to 
indicate it. That he had by this time become a 
"power" in the musical world is sufficiently evident. 
The position of antagonism which he felt bound to 
occupy in reference to the system of operatic " puffery," 
and other devices of musical mismanagement, for 
awhile brought him nothing but obloquy ; but he was 
not long in discovering how his assaults had told. 
That the enemy's confession of defeat took a merce- 
nary form is not surprising. One entry in his journal 



INDEPENDENCE. 



215 



chronicles the receipt of an offer from the manager 
of the opera-house whose system he had most per- 
sistently denounced, that he should undertake to 
translate the libretti. The tenor of his answer may be 
surmised from the contemptuous comment which fol- 
lows : — 

" As clumsy a device to stop a mouth as has often been 
attempted." 

Another entry recounts a visit from a musician of 
some celebrity, known to him as interested in a con- 
cert scheme set up in opposition to one which the 
" Athenaeum " had recently condemned. 

" After a profusion of compliments, this person had the 
insolence to ask me," says Chorley, " to write a letter to the 
editor of the ' Athenaeum,' thanking him in the name of 
the profession, for the spirited, etc., etc. — to myself in 
short ! And on my shrinking back, really hardly knowing 
whether I should show disgust or diversion, added — 'You 
know it would be in confidence t " " 

What has been elsewhere said respecting the statics 
of artistic journalism when Chorley entered its ranks, 
receives unsavory confirmation from the foregoing 
illustrations. 

The tone of scornful independence that he main- 
tained on such occasions as these was not calculated 
to make him popular in the lower circles of the pro- 
fession with which he was brought in contact; nor was 
the attitude he assumed towards the outer world a whit 
more conciliatory. During the " Lind fever " of 1847 



2l6 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

especially, his candor in raising a single voice of pro- 
test against the " chorus of idolatry," which ignored 
the existence of any defects in the public favorite, and 
forbade the discussion of any other claims than hers, 
brought upon him, to adopt his own words, " such 
ignominy as belongs to the idiotic slanderer. Old and 
seemingly solid friendships were broken forever in 
that year." * The courage with which he " defied the 
opprobrium his honest dealings raised "f has at last 
obtained recognition ; but there can be no doubt that 
for some years his neutrality — between unscrupulous- 
ness on the one hand and partisanship on the other — 
was a position of extreme discomfort. 

Occasionally, however, he received proof of the 
most unexceptionable kind, that the discrimination 
with which he meted out praise and censure gave them 
real value in the estimation of competent judges. The 
following letter from Meyerbeer scarcely requires any 
antecedent explanation. The opera referred to is 
" Le Prophete," of which, on its production at the 
Grand Opera in Paris, Chorley had written an elabo- 
rate review (" Athenaeum," April 21st, 1849). On hear- 
ing from his brother-critic, Mr. Grtineisen, that Meyer- 
beer was under the impression it had been unfavorable, 
Chorley wrote to undeceive him, and received this in 
reply :— 

" Monsieur, 

1 " J'ai lu la lettre que vous m'avez fait l'honneur de 
m'adresser avec un double plaisir : d'abord parcequ'elle 

* " Thirty Years' Musical Recollections," vol. i. p. 304. 

\ " Musical Recollections of the last Half Century " (1872), vol. ii. 
p. 201. 



LETTER FROM MEYERBEER. 



217 



exprime des sentiments si bienveillants et si aimables pour 
ma personne et mon dernier ouvrage a 1'opira ; et puis 
parcequ"elle m'apprend que j'etais dans Terreur en croyant 
le contraire. Je comprends malh-eureusement trop peu 
l'anglais po^rleiire seul. J'avais done prie une personne 
de ma connaissance de me donner un apergu de votre article 
dans ' 1' Athenaeum,' djsireux que j'etais de connaitre le juge- 
ment d'un critique aussi eclaire et aussi eminent que vous, 
monsieur. C'est d'apres l'apercu qui m'en a ete donne que 
j'ai da croire que Particle etait tres-defavorable, et que j'ai 
emis cette opinion envers Monsieur Griineisen : j'ai done 
ete bien heureux d'apprendre par votre lettre que mon 
traducteur n'a pas bien saisi le veritable sens de votre article, 
jcar ustement parceque j'ai la plus haute estime de vos 
ecrits et de votre jugement musical, monsieur, j'aurais ete 
d'autant plus peine de ne pas avoir su gagner votre appro- 
bation. 

" Permettez-moi de profiter de cette occasion pour vous 
faire mes excuses de ne pas vous avoir rendu la visite que 
vous avez bien voulu me faire a Paris. Mais j'etais alors si 
occupy par les repetitions et les travaux qui s'y rattachaient 
que je n'avais pas un moment de libre. Mais voyageurs 
comme nous le sommes tous les deux, j'ai l'espoir que nous 
[nous] rencontrerons bientjt de nouveaux quelque part, pour 
pouvoir avoir le plaisir de vous exprimer de vive voix les 
sentiments affectueux et de haute estime avec lesquels j'ai 
l'honneur d'etre, 

" Monsieur, 

" Votre tres-devoue 

" Meyerbeer. 

" Paris, le 8 mai, 1841." 

The animosities above referred to seem to have 
been confined to the lower ranks of the profession. 
10 



2l8 REMINSICENCES OF CHORLEY. 

Among its leading members his acquaintance was very 
large at this time, his relations with most of them 
being amicable, and in two or three cases cordially 
intimate. Next to Mendelssohn, among his male 
friends, was M. Liszt, whom he had known since the 
latter's visit to England in 1840 ; much correspondence 
and repeated meetings on the Continent in succeed- 
ing years having ripened their mutual regard. Foremost 
among Chorley's Parisian friends was Madame Viardot, 
for whom his personal esteem was equal to his admi- 
ration of her genius. 

Among the acquaintance introduced to him by 
Madame Viardot was M. Gounod, of whom, in 1850 
and subsequent years, he saw and heard much, and of 
whose future renown he entertained from the first a 
profound conviction. The substance of many per- 
sistently repeated predictions upon this point is con- 
densed into an entry in his journal of March, 1850: 
" It was a great pleasure to me in Paris to add to my 
list of sensations Gounod, of whom the world will one 
day hear as the composer, or else H. F. C. is much 
mistaken." 

In Paris, too, between 1847 anc ^ ^49, Chorley cul- 
tivated his acquaintance with Chopin, of whom, how- 
ever, he has left no record, beyond merely general 
expressions of gratification at their intimacy, and the 
following sonnet, written soon after the composer's 
death, after a protracted illness, in October, 1849. ^ 
commemorates, with much grace and pathos, the 
writer's admiration for the artist and regret for the 
man. 



BERLIOZ. 219 

CHOriN. 

Like to the murmur of a weary stream, 

Like to the dance of yellow leaves that fall 

Fantastically slow, — like to the call 
Of spirit to far spirit in a dream, 
Thy music — save by times, when joyous theme 

Of clarion-note blown from a castle wall, 

Or pageant dance for Southern carnival — 
Bade through the shadow pomp and pleasure beam. 

Years wore, and years — and paler burned the light, 
And lower, softer breathed the dying song ; 
Thus fain teth day, gray willow-banks among, 

So gently that we know not when 'tis night. 

O, who dare mourn the loss of our delight, 
Pain was so earnest and Decay so long ! 

Of another French musician of genius, the late 
Hector Berlioz, Chorley saw a good deal at this period, 
but without feeling much sympathy either with him- 
self or his works. Of the former we have a glimpse in 
the following journal-entry of November, 1847 : — 

" Berlioz dined here on Wednesday, before going to the 
' Elijah.' What a different nature (from Mendelssohn's), 
and how strong the bitter drop in him ! I have seen few who 
tell a sarcastic anecdote with greater gusto ! He enjoyed the 
tale of , the journalist, being thrashed in the Palais- 
Royal by some infuriate person outraged by his blame or 
praise, as heartily as poor M. used to enjoy some merry 
joke for its own intrinsic whimsicality." 

Of his music Chorley writes: — 

" I have been looking over the scores of some of this 
music by Berlioz, in which, as in the case of his ' Episode 
d'une Vie d' Artiste,' his design to me seems clear enough, 



220 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

but the dressing-up of it affectedly complicated. The figure 
is complete, but commonplace ; its clothing is queer — cuffs 
up at the elbow, ruffles round the waist, a buckle where 
buckle never was before, and feathers on the shoes ! In 
short, an elaborate use of topsy-turvy principles, which I 
must hear proved to be good ere I can accept them as 
such." 

A few years later, when they met in Weimar, where 
Berlioz had come to attend the performance of his 
" Benvenuto Cellini," a similar impression was pro- 
duced on Chorley's mind : — 

" Betwixt bitter criticism," he writes, " unwholesome pri- 
vate relations, and arrogant disregard of musical study in 
his early years, this poor Berlioz has got himself into a 
thoroughly painful and exceptional attitude, musical and 
moral. I felt the tale of his wrangles with the Grand Opera, 
detailed with such extreme gusto, emphasis and vitriolic 
spirit, at supper (after the rehearsal of the ' Benvenuto '), to 
be something too miserable for a grown man to descant on. 
There is a falseness and impurity, a conscious insufficiency 
in his proceedings, which stand between him and distinction 
in his art. ... I like the * Benvenuto ' much better 
than I had conceived possible. Brightness of orchestration 
I had expected, but not so much beauty of idea, or tangible 
symmetry of form. It is terribly overwrought, but richer in 
fancy than I thought it would be ; some of the instrumenta- 
tion is. delicious. But alas ! one hears the arrogant, resist- 
ingman, that I have described, in every note of it." 

The two great instrumentalists of this period, Thal- 
berg and Ernst, were also among Chorley's associates, 
and the latter in frequent correspondence with them ; 



JENNY LIND. 221 

but there is not enough of individuality in his reminis- 
cences of them to justify their insertion here. Among 
the leading singers of the time, his list of acquaint- 
ances included Mdlle. Jenny Lind (Madame Gold- 
schmidt). The following note from Mendelssohn was 
probably the medium of introduction : — 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" When I got to Frankfort I felt so homesick (is that a 
word ?) that I could not wait, and hurried back to Leipsic, 
and here I am, and found all well, and very happy and 
thankful I am ! This is a letter to Jenny Lind, which I beg 
you will give her if she comes to Frankfort, and if she should 
not come, pray send it, poste restante, to Munich for her. I 
ask her to sing something to you at her piano, where I like 
her still better than on the stage and in the concert-room, 
and I hope you will like her as well as I do, and that is a 
great deal. And now — auf Wiedersehen ! auf Wiedersehen! 
and have a happy journey, and a happy Riickkehr, and re- 
member me, your old Hamlet and friend, 




" Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. 
u Leipsic, 23 Sept., 1846." 

These intimacies with the leading members of the 
profession of which he was an habitual censor, were 
enjoyed for their own sake, and without inducing him 
to concede an iota of his critical independence. It 
was only with those who were content to accept his 



222 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

friendship unreservedly that he cared to mix. The 
canons by which, in his opinion, the relations between 
artist and critic should be regulated are thus summed 
up in a passage of his " Modern German Music ; '' 
and his .practice seems to have been uniformly in 
accordance with his theory : — 

. . " A desire to merit honest and well-reasoned praise 
does not mean that melancholy ante-chamber work of pros- 
tration and propitiation to the coarse and the venal, which 
some had hoped died with the death of the old-world 
aristocratic patronage. It should be recollected that those 
whom artists really trust and esteem do not require such 
humbling civilities ; that the critic moves the most freely, 
lives the most happily, and performs his task the most up- 
rightly, when the privacy of his reserve is respected, and 
when no man approaches him to insinuate into his mouth 
his own hopes and fears, his own words and thoughts, con- 
cerning himself and his works. Beyond this, by the slight- 
est interference, do artists trammel and vitiate that private 
discussion and interchange of opinion which might, on both 
sides, be so valuable and interesting." — (Vol. ii. p. 70.) 

But while he had nothing to concede or to demand 
for himself in his musical friendships, he was not less 
willing than able to turn them to account for the bene- 
fit of others. An instance in point belongs to the 
narrative of these years. A Sicilian gentleman, of 
considerable natural gift as a singer, whom complicity 
in the revolutions of 1848-9 had deprived of fortune 
and driven into exile, was recommended to his kind 
offices. Writing to his friend at Liverpool on the 
subject, Chorley says : — 



a prot£g£. 223 

"I have had the wondrous good fortune of being able to 

put him (Signor M ) in the way of the very highest and 

most costly professional training gratuitously. You cannot 
have an idea how munificent the best artists are. And so, 
to make him fit to profit to ihe utmost by such a rare advan- 
tage, I am 'guider,' as they say in the colleges, and we go 
on for about an hour a day reading music at sight." 

The successful debut of his protege was the gratify- 
ing result of such substantial kindness. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Literary life from 1852 to 1872 — Critical labors in " Athenaeum " — 
Changes observable in tone — Severity to works of friends — Discern- 
ment — Letter from Mr. Procter— Letters from Nathaniel and Mrs. 
Hawthorne — Versatility — Examples — Reviews of Mr. Wilkie Col- 
lins, and Mr. Coventry Patmore — Dramatic authorship — " The 
Love-lock" — " Duchess Eleanour " — Publishes " Roccabella " — 
Analysis and extracts — Letters from Dickens and Hawthorne — Ded- 
ication to Mrs. Browning — Letter from Mr. Browning — Translation 
of " Fairy Gold " — Biographical sketch of Mendelssohn — Publishes 
" The Prodigy " — Edits Miss Mitford's Letters — Engaged on auto- 
biography until his death. 

NO material change occurred in Chorley's literary 
connection with the " Athenaeum " down to the 
year 1866, when he ceased to contribute upon other 
than musical subjects. A fair proportion of the best 
works in belles-lettres issued during these years seems 
to have been assigned to him for review. Hawthorne's 
" Blithedale Romance " and " Transformation ; " Dick- 
ens' " Bleak House " and " Our Mutual Friend ; " Mrs. 
Browning's " Aurora Leigh," " Poems Before Con- 
gress," and " Last Poems ; " Mr. Browning's " Men 
and Women ; " Mr. Ruskin's " Stones of Venice " and 
' Modern Painters " (vols. iii. and iv.) ; Thackeray's 
"English Humorists" and "Philip;" Mrs. Gaskell's 
" Cranford " and " Wives and Daughters ; " Miss Proc- 
ter's " Legends and Lyrics ; " Beranger's " Last 



BE VERITY TO FRIENDS. 



22$ 



Songs ; " Mr. Morris' " Defence of Guenevere ; " Dr. 
Holmes' " Professor at the Breakfast-table ; " Victor 
Hugo's " Les Miserables ;" and the tales of MM. Erck- 
mann-Chatrian, may be named — without attempt at 
assortment — as among the most memorable. It is 
noteworthy, as evidence of Chorley's honesty of pur- 
pose, that some of his harshest criticisms are of books 
written by his personal friends. The children of a 
conscientious schoolmaster are apt to find that, in his 
desire to avoid any imputation of favoritism, he treats 
them with far greater rigor than their school-fellows. 
The analogy is one likely to have suggested itself to 
some of Chorley's intimates, when they met with ill- 
fare at his hands, but they did not always give him 
credit for the motive that actuated it. Miss Mitford's 
soreness at his unfavorable critique of her " Atherton " 
provoked her into what he has mildly characterized as 
a " spurt of temper," but which better deserves to be 
called an outburst of spite.* In her case, however, 
literary resentment was not carried so far as to sunder 
the ties of personal friendship ; an extreme which had 
been reached in his experience, as I have heard him 
deplore. Such demonstrations doubtless bore testi- 
mony to the power he was able to wield, but he was 
glad to be occasionally assured of this in a less violent 
fashion. 

Those who care to turn to the " Athenaeum" of 
the 5th of June, 1858, will find in his review of Ade- 
laide Procter's first volume of poems, " Legends and 
Lyrics," an excellent illustration of his accuracy in dis- 

* See Miss Mitford's " Letters " (2d series), edited by Chorley, vol. 
iii. p. 214. 

10* 



226 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

cernment and felicity in selection. It brought a note 
of grateful acknowledgment from Mr. Procter, which, 
like all his writings, has a touch of character. 

" 32 Weymouth Street. 
" 9th June, 1858. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" Your letter followed me into the country, and found me 
in Northumberland. I did not answer it, for it did not seem 
to demand any particular answer; but, on reaching London, 
I read a very kind and graceful notice of Adelaide's book in 
the ' Athenaeum,' and I refer it to the friendly hand of H. F. 
C. We are all very much pleased with it. Indeed, several 
persons have spoken of it as an amiable and graceful notice, 
bringing out some of the best things that the volume contains 
with the critic's taste and sagacity. Some of these days you 
will turn back to your little notice (I mean some fifty years 
hence) and say, I hope, with that pleasant smile that will 
become your middle age so well, ' Well, I was right, after all, 
in giving that child her first lift over the stepping-stones of 
the world.' Meminissejuvabit! 

" Yours ever, 

" B. W. Procter." 

Another of Chorley's reviews deserves to be remem- 
bered, less on its own account than for the spirited 
reply which it elicited. For the creative genius of 
Hawthorne he had always entertained the highest 
admiration, and was proud, as has already been noted, 
of having been the first English critic who drew atten- 
tion to its manifestation in the " Twice-Told Tales." 
The novelist's subsequent works had received his lav- 
ish praise, both in public and private ; especially the 
" Scarlet Letter," which he commended to a friend at 



HA WTHORNE. 



227 



Liverpool as " the most powerful and most painful 
story of modern times — the only tale in its argument 
in which the purity overtops the passion. ... It has 
struck me prodigiously ; and I think will end in tak- 
ing a very remarkable place among stories of its qual- 
ity." This impression of Hawthorne's power was con- 
firmed by the personal intercourse with him elsewhere 
referred to, the terms of which were extremely cordial. 
Chorley was therefore disappointed, when a new work 
by Hawthorne was published soon after their acquaint- 
ance had been established, to find himself unable to 
render it as high a tribute as he had rendered to its 
predecessors. The shortcomings of " Transformation " 
were accordingly criticised in the " Athenaeum " of 
March 3d, i860, with some keenness; ample praise 
being accorded to its subtlety and beauty, but a 
marked stress laid upon what he considered the pov- 
erty of invention which the author had shown in 
repeating the types of his former fictions : Hilda, for 
example, being "own cousin" to Phoebe in the " House 
of the Seven Gables." Other faults, too, were found, 
whether justly or unjustly matters little, since it was 
well worth being mistaken to be set right so charm- 
ingly. It will be understood that the following letters 
were written on the same sheet; Mrs. Hawthorne 
occupying all but the last leaf, which was reserved for 
her husband. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" Why do you run with your fine lance directly into the 
face of Hilda ? You were so fierce and wrathful at being shut 
out from the mysteries (for which we are all disappointed), 



228 REMINISCENCES OF C II OR LEY. 

that you struck in your spurs and plunged with your visor 
down. For indeed and in truth Hilda is not Phcebe, no 
more than a wild rose is a calla lily. They are alike only 
in purity and innocence ; and I am sure you will see this 
whenever you read the romance a second time. I am very 
much grieved that Mr. Chorley should seem not to be nicely 
discriminating; for what are we to do in that case? The 
artistic, pensive, reserved, contemplative, delicately appre- 
ciative Hilda can in no wise be related to the enchanting 
little housewife, whose energy, radiance, and eglantine sweet- 
ness fill her daily homely duties with joy, animation, and fra- 
grance. Tell me, then, is it not so ? I utterly protest 
against being supposed partial because I am Mrs. Haw- 
thorne. But it is so very naughty of you to demolish this 
new growth in such a hurry, that I cannot help a disclaimer ; 
and I am so sure of your friendliness and largeness, that I 
am not in the least afraid. You took all the fright out of 
me by that exquisite, gem-like, aesthetic dinner and tea which 
you gave us at the fairest of houses last summer. It was a 
prettier and more mignonne thing than I thought could hap- 
pen in London ; so safe, and so quiet, and so very satisfac- 
tory, with the light of thought playing all about. I have a 
good deal of fight left in me still about Kenyon, and the 
'of-course' union of Kenyon and Hilda; but I will not say 
more, except that Mr. Hawthorne had no idea that they 
were destined for each other. Mr. Hawthorne is driven by 
his Muse, but does not drive her; and I have known him 
to be in inextricable doubt in the midst of a book or sketch 
as to its probable issue, waiting upon the Muse for the 
rounding in of the sphere which every work of true art is. 
I am surprised to find that Mr. Hawthorne was so "absorbed 
in Italy that he had no idea that the story, as such, was in- 
teresting ! and, therefore, is somewhat absolved from having 
ruthlessly ' excited our interest to voracity.' 



VERSATILITY 



229 



" We are much troubled that you have been suffering 
this winter. We also have had a great deal of illness, and 
I am only just lifting up my head, after seven weeks of seri- 
ous struggle with acute bronchitis. I dare say you are 
laughing (gently) at my explosion of small muskets. But I 
feel more comfortable now I have discharged a little of my 
opposition. 

" With sincere regard, I am, dear Mr. Chorley, yours, 

" Sophia Hawthorne. 

" Leamington, March 5th, i860. 
" 21 Bath Street." 

" Dear Mr. Chorley : — - 

" You see how fortunate I am in having a critic close at 
hand, whose favorable verdict consoles me for any lack of 
appreciation in other quarters. Really, I think you were 
wrong in assaulting the individuality of my poor Hilda. If 
her portrait bears any resemblance to that of Phcebe, it 
must be the fault of my mannerism as a painter. But I 
thank you for the kind spirit of your notice ; and if you had 
found ten times as much fault, you are amply entitled to do 
so, by the quantity of generous praise heretofore bestowed. 
" Sincerely yours, 

" Nath. Hawthorne. 
" 21 Bath Street, Leamington." 

Before parting from the subject of Chorley's char- 
acteristics as a literary critic, an illustration or two 
must be given of what has not yet been noticed — his 
versatility. The province of belles-lettres is one of the 
least limited in literature ; poetry, novels, essays, and 
sketches falling within its strictest definition. Accord- 
ing to his interpretation of it, biographies, records of 
travel, and treatises upon Art were also included. 



230 REMINISCENCES OF CIIORIEY. 

The limit was put here, it being his wont, as has been 
seen, to decline the discussion of any subject of which 
he had not a competent knowledge ; but the field, 
even then, was a larger one than most men of letters 
in our generation would feel honestly qualified to ex- 
plore. 

With much mannerism of style he united consid- 
erable variety of method, and could be not less earnest 
in reproof of a grave offender on a point of art or 
ethics, than willing desipere in loco when it was only 
the sentimentality of a " minor minstrel " which de- 
served a little gentle ridicule. Extracts from two 
criticisms in the " Athenaeum," one of Mr. Wilkie 
Collins' "Armadale," the other of Mr. Coventry Pat- 
more's " Angel in the House," may exemplify his 
modes of dealing with such contrasted subjects : — 

" ARMADALE," BY WILKIE COLLINS. 

" It is not pleasant to speak as we must speak of this 
powerful story, but in the interests of everything that is to 
be cherished in life, in poetry, in Art, it is impossible to be 
over-explicit in the expression of judgment. Mr. W. Col- 
lins stands in a position too distinguished among novelists 
not to be amenable to the plainest censure when he commits 
himself to a false course of literary creation. " Armadale " 
is a sensation novel with a vengeance ; one, however, which 
could hardly fail to follow " No Name." Those who make 
plot their first consideration and humanity the second — 
those, again, who represent the decencies of life as too often 
so many hypocrisies, have placed themselves in a groove 
which goes, and must go, in a downward direction, whether 
as regards fiction or morals. . . . We are in a period 



RE VIE W OF " A RMA DALE." 2 3 T 

of diseased invention, and the coming phase of it may be 
palsy. Mr. Collins belongs to the class of professing satir- 
ists who are eager to lay bare the ' blotches and blains ' 
which fester beneath the skin and taint the blood of human- 
ity. He is ready with, those hackneyed and specious pro- 
tests against the cant of conventionalism. These may 
amount to a cant more unwholesome than that against which 
it is aimed. This time the interest of his tale centres upon 
one of the most hardened female villains whose devices and 
desires have ever blackened fiction — a iorger, a convicted 
adultress, murderess, and thief — a woman who deliberately, 
by the aid of a couple of wretches whose practices belong to 
the police-cells, but not to pages over which honest people 
should employ and enjoy their leisure, sits down to make 
her way to fortune and apparent respectability by imposture, 
deliberate murder, and lastly, by cold-blooded unfaithfulness 
to the man who had really loved her and rescued her from 
her bad life, and for whom she is said to have entertained 
her solitary feeling of real attachment. . . . Doubtless 
such writhen creatures may live and breathe in the ' sinks 
and sewers ' of society, engendered by the secret vices and 
infirmities of those who were answerable for their existence, 
and who encourage their misdoings, but when we see them 
displayed in fiction with all the loving care of a consummate 
artist (and without any such genuine motive as had formerly 
Hogarth, and latterly Mr. Dickens, not to show a horror 
without a suggestion towards its cure), we are oddly re- 
minded of a line in Granger's West Indian poem, ' The 
Sugar Cane ' : — 

Now, Muse, let's sing of rats ! ' 

What artist would choose vermin as his subjects ? " — Athe- 
naeum, June 2d, 1866. 



232 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

" THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE THE BETROTHAL. 

" The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel in 
the House Contains a tale not very wise, About a person 
and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managed 
his rhymes to fit, And haply fancies he has writ Another ' In 
Memoriam.' How his intended gathered flowers, And took 
her tea and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, 
For delectation of the young. But, reader, lest you say we 
quiz The poet's record of his she, Some little pictures you 
shall see, Not in our language, but in his. 

" ' While thus I grieved and kissed her glove, 

My man brought in her note to say- 
Papa had bid her send his love, 

And hoped I'd dine with them next day ; 
They had learned and practised Purcell's glee, 

To sing it by to-morrow night : 
The postscript was — her sisters and she 

Enclosed some violets blue and white. 

^ yfr sjs >fC yfc ^c 

" ' Restless and sick of long exile, 

From those sweet friends, I rode to see 
The church repairs, and after awhile 

Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea. 
They introduced the Cousin Fred 

I'd heard of, Honor's favorite ; grave, 
Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred, 

And with an air of the salt wave.' 

" Fear not this saline Cousin Fred ; He gives no tragic 
mischief birth ; There are no tears for you to shed, Unless 
they may be tears of mirth. From ball to bed, from field 
to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on ; With much con- 
ceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The 
rest will come another day, If public sympathy allows ; And 
this is all we have to say About the 'Angel in the House.' " 
— Athenaeum, Jan. 20th, 1855. 



DRAMATIC VENTURES. 233 

Among his published works of these years two by 
which he justly set considerable store, and one of 
which may possibly yet be destined to attain the suc- 
cess denied to it in his lifetime deserve special men- 
tion. This was the second of two dramatic ventures 
of which the year 1854 registered the failure. 

In a detached fragment of material for his Auto- 
biography he thus refers to the irresistible impulse 
by which he felt attracted to what Dickens has some- 
where described as the " loadstone rock " of liter- 
ature : 

" I had, and always shall have, a strong desire to write 
for the stage, because there one is brought face to face with 
those who accept or those who refuse the offering. Of 
course the pitfalls in that world are by the thousand. Jeal- 
ousy and intrigue must be faced and disconcerted, and this 
without recourse to jealousy or intrigue on the part of the 
defendant. There must be, especially as our stage now 
stands, the author's perpetual, gnawing anxiety, caused by 
the wonderful inefficiency — nay, even want of intelligence — ■ 
of two-thirds of his interpreters. How vast and wide and 
blank this is, can hardly be credited by ninety-nine out of 
the hundred persons who witness a representation and judge 
the work by the manner in which it is set forth. Yet these 
disheartening truths, as old as the drama — let them have 
been ever so well got by heart beforehand — will not discour- 
age any one in whom instincts for the stage are born. I 
never presumed to conceive that I should fare better than 
my better predecessors ; but, had the difficulties been multi- 
plied tenfold, I must still have tried my fortune ; and I can 
sincerely say that my preliminary knowledge was of use, as 
sparing me from the blank misery which attends disappointed 



254 



EEMIX7SCEXCES OF CHORLE Y. 



expectation. It is an experience of life and emotion, and 
knowledge of a strange world, peopled by strange figures, 
which I would undergo again had I to begin my career over 
again. There is no reasoning on these things — no taking 
or giving counsel. Every heart knoweth its own bitterness, 
but also its devices and desires, and its powers of endurance. 
Unless a man can (so to say) survey or measure himself, it 
is perilous work for him to put to sea in the wildest of 
weather and on the roughest of waters. The sea tempts 
sailors. But the sensations of him who, whether wrecked or 
saved, is cast on shore are as strong as they are serious. 
They mark an advance in life, a deepening of every emotion. 
I repeat (and without grimace), I would not be without such 
experience, even had I been saved from the suffering which, 
for the moment, can be sharp enough, as I can testify." 

The above confession bears on its face the evidence 
of its sincerity ; but it is curious, to say the least, that 
the knowledge he had acquired of the perils of dra- 
matic enterprise should not have dissuaded him from 
encountering them in a vessel that he suspected to 
be unseaworthy. Yet the first of the two ventures 
referred to was risked with a serious expectation that 
it would fail ; and in deference only to the contrary 
opinion of a higher authority. " The Love-lock," 
according to Chorley's account of it, was originally 
intended as " a fantastic sort of ' morality ' in dialogued 
verse with lyrics interspersed ; " the idea being sug- 
gested by Tieck's tale of " The Runenburg " (in Mr. 
Carlyle's translation), and the motive being to denounce 
the Australian gold-fever which had set in with so 
much virulence during 1852. The conversion of this 
lyrical structure into a dramatic shape was undertaken 



« THE LOVE-LOCKr 235 

at the instance of Mr. Alfred Wigan, whose " rapid 
progress and popularity as an actor" Chorley had 
" followed with more than ordinary interest." The 
drama was shown to Mr. Wigan " in every stage of 
its progress, accepted by him when incomplete," and 
its completion urged,. " in order that, when forming 
his company for the Olympic Theatre, he might pro- 
vide for its representation ; he at one time expressing 
his intention of opening his management with it. 
Against this" — continues Chorley—" I protested from 
the first moment, being satisfied that the experiment 
of playing • The Love-lock ' was one in which the 
chances were even betwixt a fair success and a thor- 
ough failure, and not choosing by any essay of mine to 
expose a new enterprise to a risk so severe. For 
once, foresight proved a piece of real good fortune to 
its owner. The failure of ' The Love-lock ' when it 
was played on the 13th of February, 1854, was dismal 
enough (if I wished it) to establish my sagacity as a 
calculator of alternatives, and, if any evil-wishers of 
myself or the theatre were there, to give them the 
liveliest satisfaction. I have witnessed more than one 
scene of the kind, but I think I never saw disapproba- 
tion more violent. . . . After all, the damage done 
was fatal to no one concerned in the affair. The 
theatre suffered less by the disappointment than it 
must have done had the ' morality ' been presented 
at a more critical period. The luckless author was in 
reality, and not in seeming, prepared for the possibility 
of such an issue." * 

* Accordingly he bore the disappointment, even at the time, very 
philosophically, writing to the editor of the " Athenaeum " next morning 



236 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

His second venture was of a higher order, a five- 
act tragedy. Though not completed for performance 
until 1854, it had been planned and in great part exe- 
cuted in 1846. The American actress Miss Cushman, 
who was then fulfilling an engagement in England, 
had greatly impressed him with her power of poetic 
apprehension ; and the part of his heroine was 
designed with express accommodation to her role. 
Some negotiations for its representation appear to have 
been made in this year, as may be inferred from a note 
addressed to him by Mr. Browning, which contains a 
few golden words of appreciation, not to be omitted 
by any biographer to whom Chorley's memory is dear. 

" Tell me of your success in your own negotiations, 
which I confidently expect, and beforehand rejoice in. 
. . . I do feel that you are safe in the hands of those 
truthful-looking Cushmans ; and being very glad you have 
got tke?n, shall be yet gladder when the world gets you, and 
helps to realize the good wishes of such as myself, with only 
wishes at their disposal, for a most conscientious artist, 
honest critic, and loyal friend." 

The project, however, was abandoned until 1854, 
when Miss Cushman was again in England, and 
" Duchess Eleanour " was prepared for the stage. 

At the instance of Miss Cushman the tragedy was 
accepted for the Haymarket Theatre. The first per- 
formance took place on March 13th, 1854, and was 
moderately successful, but the next night reversed its 
fate. In a letter of the 16th, Mr. Buckstone announced 

to promise a review on which he was working— " in proof that though 
damned I am not dead / " 



DUCHESS ELEANOUR. 



237 



to Chorley with " the deepest regret," that in conse- 
quence of the disapprobation manifested at the fall 
of the curtain and the scanty receipts at the box- 
office, the play must be withdrawn. The reasons 
which, in the opinion of this experienced manager, 
sufficiently accounted for the failure, left his conviction 
still unshaken in Chorley's ability as a dramatist. 

" The objections," he writes, " to the play consist, not 
only in its gloomy character, but in its story, which borders 
on the repulsive. These features in dramatic composition 
may belong to and be tolerated in the old dramatists, but new 
plays, to be successful in the present day, require to be more 
genial in their nature. Still, you have shown so much dra- 
matic power in your dialogue, that, with a more natural and 
a better subject, I would not hesitate to produce another 
play written by you." 

It was some consolation that " Duchess Eleanour " 
met with more appreciation without the theatre than 
within. The review of it in the " Athenaeum, "-a jour- 
nal, where, as has been seen, a member of its staff 
could by no means rely upon obtaining a favorable 
verdict, seizes with much skill on the features of origin- 
ality and power by which the figure of the Duchess 
defines itself in the reader's memory.* 

The only other work to which reference in detail 
need be made here is a work entitled " Roccabella," 

* Miss Cushman herself thought highly of the part, thanking the 
author earnestly in one of her letters for the opportunity " afforded me 
of giving birth to another child of my intellect, which I love as much 
as though warm flesh and blood. 



038 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

which he completed and published in 1859 under the 
pseudonym of Paul Bell. He had commenced it 
some years before, under the strong impression pro- 
duced on his mind by the revolutionary aspect of 
Europe, as already noted, but had laid it aside until 
recalled to the subject by the political events of that 
year. This book appears to be as much superior to 
the rest of Chorley's prose as " Duchess Eleanour " to 
the rest of his poetic fictions, and to afford similar 
evidence of his dramatic power. That it made a 
strong impression upon the minds of those whose 
opinion was of real value is indicated by the following 
letters from Dickens and Browning. The acquaintance 
between Chorley and Dickens had now grown into a 
friendship, the terms of which were mutually under- 
stood to tolerate a frank criticism of one by the other 
— as the letters will show. 

"Tavistock House, 
"Tavistock Square, London, W. C. 
" Friday night, Feb. 3, i860. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" I can most honestly assure you that I think ' Rocca- 
bella ' a very remarkable book indeed. Apart — quite apart 
— from my interest in you, I am certain that if I had taken 
it up under any ordinarily favorable circumstances as a book 
of which I knew nothing whatever, I should not — could not 
— have relinquished it until I had read it through. I had 
turned but a few pages, and come to the shadow on the 
bright sofa at the foot of the bed, when I knew myself to be 
in the hands of an artist. That rare and delightful recogni- 
tion I never lost for a moment until I closed the second vol- 
ume at the end. Iam'a good audience ' when I have rea- 
son to be, and my girls would testify to you, if there were 



LETTER FROM DICKENS. 



239 



need, that I cried over it heartily. Your story seems to me 
remarkably ingenious. I had not the least idea of the 
purport of the sealed paper until you chose to enlighten me ; 
and then I felt it to be quite natural, quite easy, thoroughly 
in keeping with the character and presentation of the Liver- 
pool man. The position of the Bell family, in the story, has 
a special air of nature and truth j is quite new to me, and is 
so dexterously and delicately done, that I find the deaf 
daughter no less real and distinct than the clergyman's wife. 
The turn of the story round that damnable Princess I pur- 
sued with a pleasure with which I could pursue nothing but 
a true interest ; and I declare to you that if I were put upon 
finding anything better than the scene of Roccabella's death, 
I should stare round my book-shelves very much at a loss 
for a long time. Similarly, your characters have really sur- 
prised me. From the lawyer to the Princess, I swear to 
them as true ; and in your fathoming of Rosamond alto- 
gether, there is a profound wise knowledge that I admire 
and respect with a heartiness not easily overstated in 
words. 

" I am not quite with you as to the Italians. Your 
knowledge of the Italian character seems to me surprisingly- 
subtle and penetrating ; but I think we owe it to those most 
unhappy men and their political wretchedness, to ask our- 
selves mercifully whether their faults are not essentially the 
faults of a people long oppressed and priest-ridden ? — whether 
their tendency to slink and conspire is not a tendency that 
spies in every dress, from the triple crown to a lousy head, 
have engendered in their ancestors through generations ? 
Again, like you, I shudder at the distresses that come of 
these unavailing risings ; my blood runs hotter, as yours 
does, at the thought of the leaders safe and the instruments 
perishing by hundreds ; yet what is to be done ? Their 
wrongs are so great that they will rise from time to time, 



240 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

somehow. It would be to doubt the eternal Providence of 
God to doubt that they will rise successfully at last. Una- 
vailing struggles against a dominant tyranny precede all suc- 
cessful turning against it. And is it not a little hard in us 
Englishmen, whose forefathers have risen so often and striven 
against so much, to look on, in our own security, through 
microscopes, and detect the motes in the brains of men 
driven mad? Think, if you and I were Italians, and had 
grown from boyhood to our present time, menaced in every 
day through all these years by that infernal confessional, 
dungeons, and soldiers, could we be better than these men? 
Should we be so good ? /should not, I am afraid, if I know 
myself; such things would make of me a moody, blood- 
thirsty, implacable man, who would do anything for revenge ; 
and if I compromised the truth — put it at the worst — habit- 
ually, where should I ever have had it before me ? In the 
old Jesuits' college at Genoa, on the Chiaja at Naples, in the 
churches of Rome, at the University of Padua, on the 
Piazzo San Marco at Venice ? — where ? And the Govern- 
ment is in all these places and in all Italian places. I have 
seen something of these men. I have known Mazzini and 
Gallenga ; Manin was tutor to my daughters in Paris ; I 
have had long talks about scores of them with poor Ary 
Scheffer, who was their best friend ; I have gone back to 
Italy after ten years, and found the best men I had known 
there exiled or in jail. I believe they have the faults you 
ascribe to them (nationally, not individually) ; but I could 
not find it in my heart, remembering their miseries, to 
exhibit those faults without referring them back to their 
causes. You will forgive my writing this, because I write it 
exactly as I write my cordial little tribute to the high merits 
of your book. If it were not a living reality to me, I should 
care nothing about this point of disagreement ; but you are 
far too earnest a man, and far too able a man, to be left un- 



LETTER FROM HAWTHORNE. 



241 



remonstrated with by an admiring reader. You cannot write 
so well without influencing many people. If you could tell 
me that your book had but twenty readers, I would reply, 
that so good a book will influence more people's opinions 
through those twenty than a worthless book would through 
twenty thousand ; and I express this with the perfect confi- 
dence of one in whose mind the book has taken, for good 
and all, a separate and distinct place. Accept my thanks 
for the pleasure you have given me. The poor acknowl- 
edgment of testifying to that pleasure wherever I go will be 
my pleasure in return. And so, my dear Chorley, good-night, 
and God bless you. 

" Ever faithfully yours, 

" Charles Dickens." 



A joint letter from Nathaniel and Mrs. Hawthorne 
contained another gratifying tribute of appreciation. 
The former wrote — 

" Dear Mr. Chorley : — 

" I became greatly interested in Roccabella ; but I have 
not any art of putting my impressions about books into 
words, and my wife has done it better than I could.* For 
my part, however, I think Roccabella is a true Italian, and 
on the whole, I consent to his death, although it shocked 
me a little at the time. I especially admire the close of the 
book — your lofty integrity, for example, in not trying to patch 
up a happiness for Rosamond and Shepherd out of the frag- 
ments of life that remain. But, as I said before, I cannot 

* Mrs. Hawthorne's letter is only preserved in a fragment, which 
testifies to her admiration of the " truth, and sincerity, and earnestness" 
of the book. 

1 1 



242 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

give my reasons for like or dislike. I have a deep impres- 
sion of the power of the book, and can say no more. 
" Sincerely yours, 

"Nath. Hawthorne." 



In dedicating " Roccabella " to Mrs. Browning, 
however, Chorley cannot be acquitted of a grave error 
in judgment. The dedication, indeed, contains no 
allusion whatever to the political bearing of the novel, 
and simply offers it as a truthful " story of a woman's 
heart," in homage to the most distinguished of Eng- 
lish poetesses. And, by thus throwing its leading 
purpose into the background, he probably hoped to 
avoid any suspicion of a design to offend one whom 
he desired to honor. But to ignore what is palpable, 
only singles it out for remark ; and, in this instance, it 
could no more be doubted that Mrs. Browning would 
regard the book as a conservative protest against the 
cause to which her heart and soul were devoted, and 
a satire upon the party of which she was the repre- 
sentative and spokeswoman, than that strangers would 
be divided in opinion as to whether the dedication 
was meant for a rebuke, or recognized a change that 
had taken place in her sympathies. If he justly felt 
himself safe from misconstruction on the part of his 
friend, he could not rely upon the world's being 
equally generous to her ; and I can only explain his 
defective sympathy as an illustration of the extent to 
which intense conviction can deaden an acute sensi- 
bility. That his indiscretion was condoned by Mrs. 
Browning has been already seen. Some idea of the 
admirable temper with which she accepted the honor, 



LETTER FROM MR. BROWNING. 243 

and disregarded the inconsideration, may be gathered 
from the reference made to her reply in the letter of 
Mr. Browning that accompanied it. This letter I am 
glad to be permitted to print. " Roccabella " was not 
written in vain when it evoked so convincing a demon- 
stration of the justice of the cause it had disparaged. 

"You will have read my wife's letter, dear Chorley. I 
know she feels gratified and honored, as she tries to say — 
and you must understand that I take that feeling of hers, 
and add others of my own to it — ' thank you most truly.' 
I agree, too, in the main, with her estimate of the book, 
though I should be inclined to dwell more on the artistic 
merits (great they are) of the characters, and agree to take 
more for granted in the pre-supposing a sufficient cause for 
action of some sort, of which you, in the present case, only 
choose to consider the irregular and blamable examples. 
Still, I wish you had given satisfaction on this point to every- 
body by a paragraph, no longer, of necessity, than a preg- 
nant one I admired in ' Pomfret,' which disposed of the 
previous question of the right or wrong doctrine, and then 
explained that the story would only deal with conscientious- 
ness and its results, upon any conviction whatever, so long 
as it was honest. After that admission in this case of the 
existence of a great cause requiring great sacrifices, I should 
go on to enjoy the portraiture of the false, cowardly, or fool- 
ish instruments, self-elected or ill-selected, just as one enjoys 
the castigation of Sir Samuel Luke, 'that Mameluke,' and 
does not cry out against the outrage to Milton or Vane. I 
don't think it would be hard to prove this, by accepting, for 
a moment, all your characters as samples of the whole body 
of professing patriotism ; abolishing them accordingly with 
hearty good will, and then * beginning over again,' by drop- 
ping you into the middle of an Italian province, suffering, as 



244 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 



you would see ; and bidding you, supposed an Italian born, 
set about remedying what you saw, as your conscience 
should instigate, and with the best means your intelligence 
could suggest. Here is on the table, for instance, an 
extract from the documents now publishing at Bologna in 
exemplification of the Pope's rule in Romagna ; the first 
three letters, declaring the simple state of things, written by 
those who, having caused it, are not interested in under- 
stating it, say — that of Cardinal Massimo, the legate of 
Ravenna, that ' tolti i vecchi, le donne, e i fanciulli, il resto 
della popolazione dai 18 anni in sopra, mmo pochissirni spauriti 
legittimisti, h tutto per massima ostile al Governo ; ' for which 
state of things he simply recommends ' polizia vigile, gius- 
tizia esecutiva rapida, armata, sicura? The letter of the 
Governor of Rome, Marini (now Cardinal), replies to this 
that ' il quadro nero di quella provincia & pur troppo naturale, 
per le precedenti cospiranti notizie e per la perspicaccia del 
descrittore ; * and the last letter is from Antonelli himself, 
complaining bitterly that, after a month's quiet occupation 
of Bologna by the Austrians, only one citizen had as yet 
i fatto atto di ossequio a Sua Santita ' by a letter to the Pope 
at Portici. Here you have the universal grievance : pro- 
test against it in any degree, take the poorest means to 
make your protest effective, and help the whole population to 
a voice, if not a blow, and you begin Roccabellaism; better 
than he, because you are better in head and heart; but 
when he, or the like of him, begins to imitate you badly, and 
the rest to simulate you both for worse purposes, all I ask 
is, don't let yourself be blamed; don't condemn all heroes 
because they breed faquins ! Even these last do call atten- 
tion to the corrupt carcass, though they feed on the same ; 
and because of all the last ten years' Roccabellaism, comes 
this day of the Congress's judgment, at worst, or a continu- 
ance and extension of the present state of things, which 



LETTER FROM MR. BROWNING. 245 

would be best of all. Archbishop Cullen gets up and 
declares that the Pope's subjects love him of all loves, and 
that nobody but Sir Eardley Wilinot says otherwise ; and 
what would disprove this had the Roccabellas been silent 
some ten years? Even loud talking pulls down a snow- 
mountain on people's heads, in default of more active 
measures ; and, somehow or other, it does seem rolling 
down at last. God speed it ! 

" I hope you will write another novel, and manage it 
more dexterously than the booksellers seem to have done 
in this case. I never see you advertised, nor, consequently 
(I suppose), noticed ; and your book just wants that only to 
succeed. What a notice was that in the ' Athenaeum ' ! 
Your self-abnegation is wrong in the very interests of the 
journal ; for if a writer, doing deliberately his best, deserves 
such a comment and no more, what would his weekly 
thoughts and fancies deserve in the way of paragraph-room ? 
I expect you will analyse a brace of novels at adequate 
length, for many a week to come, before you stop the way 
with somebody else's .' Roccabella.' These are poorer con- 
siderations to you, however, than to your friends. And we 
two here, are, as of old, your fast friends, dear Chorley. I 
have got stiff at a distance with daily nothings to do and 
chronicle (in head at least), and my words do not fly out as 
promptly as I could wish, and as once may have been the 
case ; but I know what I know, and remember all your 
kindness to us both. You are often in our mouths, gener- 
ally in our thoughts, always in our hearts. God bless you ! 
" Yours affectionately ever, 

"' R. Browning." 

The conditions of its publication, as Mr. Browning 
hints, were not favorable to the success of " Rocca- 
bella ; " and Chorley's resolution to try if his " luck" 



246 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

would be equally adverse, whether he announced or 
withheld his name, imposed an additional restraint 
upon its circulation. By his express desire, no allusion 
to his authorship was made in the " Athenaeum," 
where it received a very inadequate notice ; and be- 
yond the confines of his own set, it seems to have 
attracted no attention. 

A page or two are all that need be given to his 
minor productions. In 1857 ne published, under the 
title of " Fairy Gold for Young and Old," * a para- 
phrased translation of a series of fairy-tales by M. 
Savinien Lapointe, which had obtained the hearty 
approbation of Beranger. The poet's characteristic 
letter is inserted in the preface, which also contains an 
interesting notice of the author, a Parisian artisan. 
In 1864, Chorley prefixed to the second edition of 
Lady Wallace's translation of " Mendelssohn's Let- 
ters from Italy and Switzerland," a brief biographical 
sketch of the composer. It deals with the man rather 
than his works, and sums up the fascinating features 
of his mental and moral personality in language that, 
warm as it is, does not savor of the exaggeration 
which the writer admits the chief difficulty of his 
task lay in avoiding. It bears, nevertheless, the im- 
press of his earnest affection for his subject, and is, 
probably on this account, in point of style among the 
purest and succinctest pieces of English that he ever 
wrote. 

A three-volume novel, entitled " The Prodigy : a 
Tale of Music," f published in 1866, was Chorley's 
latest effort in fiction. Its subject is nearly identical 

* Routledge and Co. f Chapman and Hall. 3 vols. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 247 

with that of two earlier works, " Conti " and " The 
Lion," — the career of a genius — but the treatment is 
essentially distinct. In point of skill the first admits 
of no comparison with it ; and the second, in respect 
of variety of illustration and force of delineation, falls 
far below it ; but as a realization of the writer's inten- 
tion to preach an artistic homily to the gifted, it can 
scarcely be considered more successful than either. 

Several literary projects were conceived during 
the last years of his life, two of which, a biography of 
Rossini, and a version of Woltmann's " Life of Hol- 
bein," made some approach towards execution, but, 
from one cause or another, all were finally abandoned. 
The latest work that he lived to complete, published 
after his death, was an edition of a second series of 
Miss Mitford's Letters,* to which he prefixed a bio- 
graphical sketch of the writer. The cordial apprecia- 
tion of her literary merits, the vigorous and healthy 
condemnation of the idolatry to which her life was 
sacrificed, and the good-humored tolerance of her 
occasional sallies of temper in reference to himself, 
give this brief memoir a worthy place among his 
minor productions. An incidental allusion at the 
close of the second volume (pp. 196, 197) to his hope 
that he may " one day tell the details " of an episode 
in the career of his brother, John Rutter Chorley 
(with whom one of Miss Mitford's correspondents had 
been connected in earlier life), points to the preparation 
of the Autobiography, in which an account of that 
career was intended to form a special chapter. Upon 
this Autobiography Chorley was engaged more or less 
* Messrs. Bentley and Son. 1872. 2 vols. 



248 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

during the last ten years of his life. The materials 
were largely collected, and the work had so far taken 
shape that the contract for its speedy publication had 
been signed, when a sudden summons brought his 
earthly labors to an end. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Career as a musical critic from 1852 to 1868 — Recognition of his influ- 
ence — Estimates by Sir Michael Costa and Mr. Henry Leslie — 
Practical testimony — Employment as a writer for music — Effects 
of his criticism — "Modern German Music" — Extracts — "Thirty 
Years' Musical Recollections" — Extracts — Lectures — Interest in 
musical enterprise — Birmingham Festivals — Crystal Palace Con- 
certs and Handel Festivals — Retirement from " Athenaeum." 

DURING the last twenty years of Chorley's life 
his influence as a musical critic steadily widened. 
The strength and pertinacity of his convictions, and 
the learning and skill which he brought to sustain 
them, gave a marked individuality to his critical tone, 
which could not be ignored even by those who liked it 
the least. His judgment seems by this time to have 
been accepted by the first musicians of England and 
the Continent as that of a thoroughly competent 
authority, and listened to by amateurs, except in a 
limited circle, with more deference than that of any 
other contemporary critic. In many houses, it has 
been said, the " Athenaeum " was habitually read 
solely for the sake of its musical column. He had by 
no means outlived obloquy, — receiving, indeed, so late 
as in 1862, the distinction of a metrical lampoon of sev- 
eral pages, expressly devoted to him, — but he had 
over-lived any enmity likely to be prejudicial to his 
influence, and established on a sure basis the friend- 
11* 



250 



REMINISCENCES OF CIIORLEY. 



ships he cared to retain. To the weight of that influ- 
ence, the assured reputation in England of more than 
one composer and vocalist still bears witness. To the 
esteem in which his opinion and countenance were 
held, the wide intercourse and frequent correspon- 
dence upon themes of common interest which he 
maintained with the leading members of the musical 
world, would supply ample testimony, were it practica- 
ble to adduce it. But one or two posthumous tributes 
to his memory may be cited in preference to words 
addressed to the living. No musician's verdict will 
be more readily accepted as authoritative than that of 
Sir Michael Costa. His intimate acquaintance with 
Chorley dates from 1845, an d the ample opportunities 
it afforded him of putting critical qualifications to the 
test give special value to the result of his observation. 
A crucial test was furnished on the occasion of a visit 
paid to him in the Isle of Wight during 1854, when he 
was composing his oratorio of " Eli." The score was 
examined by Chorley in manuscript ; and " I found," 
says the composer, " that he knew its orchestral effects 
as well as I did myself." Of the manly independence, 
excellent judgment, and large knowledge displayed in 
the musical criticism of the "Athenaeum," Sir Michael 
speaks in terms of the highest praise. 

Another unimpeachable authority, Mr. Henry Les- 
lie, speaking from a familiar intercourse of " nearly 
thirty years," gives the following estimate of Chorley's 
critical career : — 

" Gifted with a highly sensitive temperament, he had a 
natural and intuitive perception of the good and great in Art. 



MR. HENR Y LE SUE. 2 5 1 

His acquaintance with musical works was very extensive, for 
he deemed no trouble too great in order to add to his 
experience, frequently travelling considerable distances to 
hear the performance of works which had no chance of being 
produced in England. Thus he became known to all the 
leading Continental artistes, by whom he was held in great 
repute. 

" Enthusiastic in expressing his admiration of whatever 
approached the high standard by which he judged, he was 
especially severe in censuring all that he deemed false. He 
was fearless in stating his own opinions of the merits of per- 
formances and of compositions ; but those who reached his 
inner nature valued the man too much to be offended with 
that which they well knew was the honestly expressed opin- 
ion of the critic. 

" This determined assertion of his own individual ideas, 
coupled with his knowledge and experience, caused him to 
exercise no ordinary influence in musical circles. Full of 
strong prejudices, yet with the highest sense of honor, 
those he most esteemed frequently fared worse than those 
whom he personally disliked, so earnest was his desire to 
allow no private feelings to interfere with his public duties. 

" Jt would have been well had he not written in conjunc- 
tion with others. Musicians not unnaturally expect that in 
the composition of musical works their ideas should be 
deemed worthy of consideration ; but Mr. Chorley was of a 
contrary opinion, and it was with the utmost difficulty — 
indeed, on many occasions it was an absolute impossibility 
— for them to obtain from him the slightest concession. 

" For very many years nearly all that was distinguished 
in Art, Science, and Literature, was constantly to be met at 
his house. 

" His kindness, encouragement, and helpfulness to young 
aspirants were unlimited, and there was not one of the many 



252 REMINISCENCES OE CHORLEY. 

cases of distress brought to his notice that did not benefit 
from his means, though his name but seldom appeared as a 
donor." 

Some more practical recognitions of the position 
he had attained were afforded in his lifetime. Among 
these were the invitations he received from such cor- 
porations as the Society of Arts and the Royal Insti- 
tution, to deliver courses of lectures, and from musical 
societies, both native and foreign, to attend their 
festivals ; the reliance placed upon his judgment in 
1862, when he was requested to select the composers 
and the themes appropriate to the musical inaugura- 
tion of« the International Exhibition, and the value 
attached to his evidence before the Commission of 
1865, appointed to inquire into the organization of the 
Academy of Music. His employment, moreover, as a 
librettist and adapter of words for the voice, during 
these years, was almost continuous. Among the best 
known of his productions were translations of Gluck's 
" Armide," " Alceste," " Orfeo," and " Iphigenie en 
Aulide ; " Meyerbeer's " L'Etoile du Nord " and 
" Dinorah ; " Auber's " Domino Noir ; " M. Gounod's 
" Faust ; " Berlioz's " Faust " and trilogy of " La 
Sainte Famille ; " the books of Mr. Leslie's oratorio 
of " Judith " and cantata of " Holyrood ; " Sir J. Bene- 
dict's cantata of " St. Cecilia ; " Mr. Sullivan's opera 
of " The Sapphire Necklace," and cantata of " Kenil- 
worth;" and Mr. John Thomas' cantata of "The 
Bride of Neath Valley ; " the songs for forty melodies 
by Meyerbeer, and twelve by M. Goldschmidt, besides 
a considerable number by M. Gounod, Mr. Sullivan, 
and other composers. 



GERMAN MODERN MUSIC. 



253 



" As a writer of words for music/' to quote from 
an obituary notice of him by a well-known pianist, 
" he was, of all Englishmen of his time, the most 
sought after. His name is coupled with that of nearly 
every eminent composer in this country." The suc- 
cess which attended his share in such work was some- 
times great, notably in the case of the cantata of 
" St. Cecilia," and would of itself have warranted the 
decided tone he adopted in reference to the form of 
his compositions, even had his theoretic views upon 
questions of Art been less pronounced than they 
notoriously were. 

A more deliberate utterance of his opinions and 
sympathies in connection with music than he was able 
to put forth as a journalist, will be found in two pub- 
lished works of this period, of which some account 
must be given. 

The first of these, which appeared in 1854 under 
the title of " Modern German Music," * was, in fact, a 
republication of the chapters of his former work 
" Music and Manners," which had embraced that 
branch of the subject, but supplemented with large 
additions, the fruit of later study. Though not 
entirely freed from the blemishes which disfigured it 
in its original shape, the book bears every mark' of 
being carefully revised, and entitled to the honorable 
reputation which it enjoys as a work of authority. A 
few only of the most important additions can here be 
noticed. The chapters on Gluck, Spohr, and Cheru- 
bini appear to. be the most thoughtfully studied ; 
those on Mozart and Beethoven the most unconven- 

* Smith, Elder & Co. 2 vols. 



254 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 



tional in criticism ; that on Herr Wagner the most 
trenchant in censure. The following extracts are 
selected as illustrations of the writer's method. Their 
intrinsic value as expressions of opinion on the respec- 
tive merits of the two composers named, will be vari- 
ously estimated : 

"The operas of Gluck can only be studied as they 
deserve by being heard and seen ; and, moreover, under 
conditions of careful and magnificent presentation. The 
most experienced and imaginative of readers will derive 
from the closest perusal of the scores of Gluck's operas 
feeble and distant impressions of their power and beauty. 

He wrote for the stage ; and when he has been 

judged in the closet, he has been either half judged, or else 

curiously misunderstood The world requires 

beauty and variety of tone, as well as power of lungs — some 
elasticity in the voice, as well as some precision in deliver- 
ing the words — a company, in short, of great dramatic 
vocalists of genius — to draw from the music of Gluck its 

whole meaning But leaving such Utopian visions 

of what a represented opera by Gluck should be, there is 
enough in his music, when reverently sung and played by 
the inferior singers and coarse operatic actors of modern 
Germany, to surprise by its beauty, as well as to arrest by 
its power. What a voluptuous lusciousness of melody floats 
and dies through the fairy scenes of ' Armide ' ! There is 
no instance of fascination in music more exquisite than the 
great tenor song of Rinaldo, 'Plus j 'observe;' no melody 
more alluring in its mellow monotony than Lucinda's solo in 

the same opera, ' Jamais dans ces beaux lieux.' In 

' Alceste,' the beauty is more irresistible than the intense 
magic tenderness of the music. I have never been more 
moved by delicious sensations and deep emotions conjointly, 



GLUCK. ' 255 

so strongly as by a very moderate performance of this opera 

at Berlin In none of the cited instances is there 

the slightest attempt — born of weakness, and bred by con- 
ceit — to force art beyond its own special bounds. None of 
these specimens is antipathetic to the voice or repulsive to 
the singer, or conciliatory of those strange souls who hold 
that sincerity and brutality, might and ugliness, are one. 

Yet those who would praise, and who endeavor 

while praising also to prove, the beauty of Gluck, are as yet 
without a public. In like manner, I have never heard one 
of Gluck's operas without being surprised by a merit in 
them for which the annalists (before the time of M. Berlioz, 
at least) have never given him credit — namely, orchestral 

variety, interest, and invention Certain it is that 

his fancies, as fancies, come out into brighter relief than any- 
thing in Mozart's operas — Taminos' flute, Papagenos" bells, 
and the tromboni that speak together with 11 Commendatore 
perhaps excepted. Let me cite, as a few among many 
instances, the dialogue betwixt the two wind instruments 
to the words 'J'entends retentir,' etc., in 'Iphigenie en 
Aulide ; ' the ferocious life given to the chorus of Scythians 
in ' Iphigenie en Tauride,' by the use of the cymbal ; the 
lute-like pizzicatto of the violins in the chorus with ballet in 
the second act of ' Alceste,' and then the entire change of 
instruments on the amoroso in G minor which serves as trio 

(so to say) to this composition His recitative 

stands alone ; approached by Mozart only, in some few pas- 
sages, such, for instance, as Donna Anna's burst in ' Don 
Juan,' when she recognizes her father's murderer; emulated 
by Rossini in his third act of ' Otello ; ' but by himself 
always maintained at the highest point of interest, without 
ever becoming overwrought or oppressive. By this very 
characteristic, those who have searched the depths of 
musical invention would have been led to admit the claims 



256 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

of Gluck as a melodist ; seeing that no good recitative will 
be ever written by those who are ignorant of the balance of 
cadence — of the sweetness or sadness of certain intervals — 
of contrast betwixt phrase and phrase — of measured time, 
least licentious when freest — of all, in short, that goes to 
make one of the tunes in which the world is to delight." — 
Vol. i. pp. 262-279. 

" There is probably no musician, living or dead, by whom 
the same general completeness of beauty has been exhibited 
as by the composer of ' Don Juan,' and perhaps no more 
exact parallel can be made than the one which designates 
him the Raphael of his art. And thus the intense satisfac- 
tion that Mozart has ministered to every intelligence — lofty, 
mediocre, lowly — may by many be thought placed above 
examination and question ; and thus examiners and inquir- 
ers may, by the very fact of their inquiry, be unfairly placed 
side by side with the group of strong and gnarled and gifted 
and perverse men whose /r^-Raphaelism in painting has 
become a byword, and given a name to a school. Never- 
theless, though perfect harmony and beauty command the 
largest congregation, and subdue the large proportion of 
the mixed intelligence and affectionate faith of the world 
(this without cant or hypocrisy on the part of true believers) ; 
though further, without an overruling feeling for beauty, the 
imaginative arts can have small existence as arts — harmony 
is still not the only essential quality— beauty is still not the 
highest merit — because it may exist without the existence 
of commanding power, of brilliant genius, of fresh inven- 
tion. And seeing that Mozart has enchanted rather than 
excited the world — seeing that he has provided for the 
average sensations and sympathies of mankind, rather than 
enlarged the number of these, or exalted their quality, it 
appears to me impossible entirely to subscribe to his suprem- 
acy as affording that Alpha and Omega of musical excel- 



MOZART. 



257 



lence, which the fond millions of his worshippers have de- 
lighted to ascribe to it. To state the argument in another 
form, let .me submit that in art, in literature — in all that 
concerns appeal to the sympathies by imagination — there 
are few confusions more frequently made than that of senti- 
ment for feeling. We lean to the former because it soothes 
us, afflicts us with a pleasing pain, strews flowers above all 
corpses, presents the right emotion at the right moment, 
calling on us neither to scale terrible heights nor to fathom 
perilous depths, while it in no respect shrinks from the ex- 
tremes of ecstasy and despair. It is not merely the light of 
heart, the frivolous of character, the feeble in thought, 
whom sentiment satisfies, persuades, and fascinates. There 
are many of a graver, deeper nature, more cruelly afflicted 
in their own experiences, who object that Art should, in any 
form, mirror the secrets of their hearts ; considering it in 
some sort as a holiday-land, a place of healing repose, and 
of easy (not vacant) enjoyment — not as an arena in which 
the battle of life and suffering may be fought over again, 
merely by phantom combatants. The perfection, then, of 
sentimental expression — more generally popular because 
less disturbing than the deepest feeling or the most poignant 
dramatic power — is the quality which has universally charmed 
the world in the music of Mozart, expressed as it is by him 
in a style where freedom and serenity, Italian sweetness of 
vocal melody and German variety of instrumental science 
are combined as they have never been before or since his 
time. That he could rise above this. level is as true as that 
for the most part he did not rise above it. The opening 
scene of ' Don Juan,' the recitative ' Don Ottavio son morto,' 
the stretto to the finale in the first act, and the cemetery 
duett in that opera — the ' Confutatis ' in the ' Requiem ' — 
the piano-forte fantasia in C minor, and the overture to the 
' Zauberflote,' among his instrumental writings — all instances 



258 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 

of what I consider higher in tone than mere sentiment — will 
perhaps suffice to illustrate my distinction. In the generality 
of Mozart's works, however, there is an evenness of beauty, 
an absence of excitement — dare I say an inattention to char- 
acterisation in drama ? — which leave something of vigor and 
variety to be desired. Within the circle of his oratorios and 
cantatas (their respective musical epochs compared), Han- 
del is more various than the composer of ' Figaro ' in his 
'Jupiter Symphony,' his quartettes, his masses, and his 
piano-forte works. Haydn, in his instrumental works, has 
fresher inspirations — never any so voluptuous — many more 
frivolous (for Mozart was never frivolous, even when writing 
a waltz or a quodlibei) — but some more picturesque in their 
originality. Gluck is grander and more impassioned in 
opera. Beethoven, of course, flies many an arrow-flight 
beyond him in symphony, sofiata, quartette, and concerto. 
While no one who has done so much has done so generally 
well, there is no single work by Mozart, in any style, than 
which some other single work, having greater interest, 
by some other composer, could not be cited. We can go 
backward from Mozart to Bach and Handel. We can go 
forward from him to Beethoven. We can condescend (if it 
please the purists so to state the case) from ' Don Juan ' and 
' Figaro ' to ' Guillaume Tell ' and ' II Barbiere ; ' but some 
of us cannot return from any of these masters to Mozart 
without feeling as if some of the brightness, so long thought 
incomparable, had passed away from our divinity ; that 
while, as a mingler of many powers, he has no peer — if 
regarded either as a subduer, as an awakener, or as a 
charmer by mirth — there are separate stars of the first mag- 
nitude larger than his star." — Vol. ii. pp. 159-171. 

As an illustration of Chorley's catholicity of taste, 
the following extract from his chapters on the Waltz 



"MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS." 259 

Music of Vienna may be worth quoting. Referring 
to a ball at the Sperl, at which Strauss was the con- 
ductor, he says : 

" There was in the music that strange mixture of pen- 
siveness and inebriating spirit but faintly represented in the 
ballrooms of London and Paris, even by the same Strauss 
when directing the same orchestra, and playing the same 
tunes, which makes me. also remember the evening. The 
exquisite modulation of the triple tempo which no French 
orchestra can render — full to the utmost fulness, yet not heavy 
— round and equal, yet still with a si i^at propelling accent — 
the precision and the pleasure among the players, and the 
unstudied quiet animation of the waltz-master himself, made 
up an irresistible charm — a case of that fascination by per- 
fect concord, without any apparent mechanical weariness, 
which long practice only can give — a delicious example of 
some of the most luscious tones that happy orchestral com- 
bination can produce, called out in expression and enhance- 
ment of some of the most beautiful music of modern 
Europe." — Vol. ii. p. 147. 

Passing over with an allusion an arrangement of 
verses to " English tunes," which he published in 
1857, we must briefly notice the two volumes of " Rec- 
ollections/' * which embodied the results of his thirty 
years' experience. The formal method in which he 
has arranged his subject, and the "unusual slovenliness 
of his style in this book, have probably deterred many 
readers from doing it justice. It will be found, by 
those who have courage to overcome the first instinct 

* " Thirty Years' Musical Recollections." Hurst & Blackett. 1862 
2 vols. 



260 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

of repulsion thus occasioned, not only a pithy sum- 
mary of operatic history during the period it embraces, 
but abounding in suggestive dicta and graphic descrip- 
tions. The careful estimates of individual composers 
and singers which it contains give it special interest 
and value, if some needful allowance be made for the 
critic's temptation to be a " laudator temporis acti" 
when writing of recent celebrities and the tastes " of 
the hour." That no opportunity is lost of proclaim- 
ing his favorite theories and denouncing his peculiar 
aversions in Art will be taken for granted, without 
illustrations ; but one or two extracts may be made to 
exemplify the variety with which he has contrived to 
treat a theme in itself sufficiently limited. Here, for 
instance, is a noteworthy observation upon national 
characteristics : 

" He (Donizetti) is remarkable as an instance of fresh- 
ness of fancy brought on by incessant manufacture. Such a 
change is almost exclusively confined to Italian genius in its 
workings. It learns and grows, while creating. If it be 
moved by no deep purpose, it avails itself of self-correction ; 
it strengthens its force on unconscious experience. Whereas 
German after German has gone deeper and deeper into fog- 
land, when aspiring to produce what music cannot give, Ital- 
ian after Italian has not merely perfected his own peculiar 
style, but has enlarged his science, and arrived at novelty, at 
a period of his career when it might have been fancied that 
nothing but truism remained to be given out." — Vol. i. p. 
i54- 

This last extract is given as an example of Chor- 
ley's skill in description : 



u musical recollections:* 261 

" There remains a strange scene to be spoken of — the 
last appearance of this magnificent musical artist (Pasta), 
when she allowed herself, many years later, to be seduced 
into giving one performance at Her Majesty's Theatre, and 
to sing in a concert for the Italian cause at the Royal Ital- 
ian Opera. Nothing more ill-advised could have been 
dreamed of. Madame Pasta had long ago thrown oft the 

stage and all its belongings Her voice, which, at 

its best, had required ceaseless watching and practice, had 
been long ago given up by her. Its state of utter ruin on 
the night in question passes description. She had been 
neglected by those who, at least, should have presented her 
person to the best advantage admitted by time. Her queenly 
robes (she was to sing some scenes from " Anna Bolena ") 
in nowise suited or disguised her figure. Her hairdresser 
had done some tremendous thing or other with her head — or 
rather had left everything undone. A more painful and dis- 
astrous spectacle could hardly be looked on. There were 
artists present, who had then, for the first time, to derive 
some impression of a renowned artist — perhaps with the 
natural feeling that her reputation had been exaggerated. 
Among these was Rachel — whose bitter ridicule of the entire 
sad show made itself heard throughout the whole theatre, 
and drew attention to the place where she sat — one might 
even say, sarcastically enjoying the scene. Among the 
audience, however, was another gifted woman, who might 
far more legitimately have been shocked at the utter wreck 
of every musical means of expression in the singer ; who 
might have been more naturally forgiven, if some humor of 
self-glorification had made her severely just — not worse— to 
an old prima donna ; I mean Madame Viardot Then, and 
not till then, she was hearing Madame Pasta. But truth 
will always answer to the appeal of truth. Dismal as was 
the spectacle — broken, hoarse, and destroyed as was the 



262 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

voice — the great style of the singer spoke to the great 
singer. The first scene was Anne Boleyrts duet with Jane 
Seymour. The old spirit was heard and seen in Madame 
Pasta's ' Sorgi,' and the gesture with which she signed to her 
penitent rival to rise. Later, she attempted the final mad 
scene of the opera — that most complicated and brilliant 
among the mad scenes on the modern musical stage — with 
its two cantabile movements, its snatches of recitative, and its 
bravura of despair, which may be appealed to as an example 
of vocal display, till then unparagoned, when turned to the 
account of frenzy, not frivolity — perhaps, as such, commis- 
sioned by the superb creative artist. By that time, tired, 
unprepared, in ruin as she was, she had rallied a little. 
When — on Anne Bo/eyn's hearing the coronation music for 
her rival, the heroine searches for her own crown on her 
brow — Madame Pasta wildly turned in the direction of the 
festive sounds, the old irresistible charm broke out ; nay, 
even in the final song, with its roulades and its scales of 
shakes, ascending by a semi-tone, the consummate vocalist 
and tragedian, able to combine form with meaning — the 
moment of the situation, with such personal and musical 
display as forms an integral part of operatic art — was indi- 
cated, at least to the apprehension of a younger artist. 
' You are right ! ' was Madame Viardot's quick and heart- 
felt response (her eyes full of tears) to a friend beside her. 
* You are right ! ' it is like the ' Cenacolo ' of Da Vinci at 
Milan — a wreck of a picture, but the picture is the greatest 
picture in the world ! " — Vol. i. pp. 136-139. 

Of the capacity which he felt conscious of possess- 
ing, and, under more favorable circumstances, might 
have developed as a composer, Chorley has left some 
trace in his ballads, the " elegance" of which has been 
commended by so competent a judge as Mr. Leslie. 



INTEREST IN ART. 263 

Less skilled ears cannot fail to be charmed by the 
graceful simplicity of the melody in " When I was 
young" and "The Enchanted River," the admirable 
fitness of the setting to the chivalrous sentiment and 
antique expression of " Bid me not the Lady praise." 
Both the air and words in each of these examples are 
his own ; and the conjunction may be taken as his best 
attempt to realize the views he held as to the relation 
between poetry and music. This relation was the 
subject of a lecture which he delivered before the 
Royal Institution, February, 1861. Another lecture 
given at the Musical Institute was devoted to Moore, 
the English poet who, in his opinion, had brought the 
union of verse and song to the highest perfection. 

Throughout his life, and with unabated force to 
the last, Chorley showed the warmest interest in all 
public or private enterprises by which Music was to 
be served or honored. The Birmingham Festivals 
were the special subject of his approbation ; and he 
was " never tired," says a friend who was in constant 
correspondence with him, " of praising, not only the 
performances, which he considered the most perfect 
in the world, but also the general management (under 
the care of Mr. Peyton), the courteous reception of 
strangers, and the universal holiday feeling and hospi- 
tality manifested on these occasions by the inhabit- 
ants." The same friend speaks of the keen enjoy- 
ment which Chorley took " in the musical perform- 
ances at the Crystal Palace ; his appreciation of the 
readiness shown on the part of the managers to pro- 
duce new works, and to give young musicians an 
opportunity of appearing before the public. Of the 



264 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE V. 

Handel Festivals he always wrote in the highest terms 
of admiration, attending them regularly with a party, 
and laughingly calling his four seats at the Palace 
■ Chorley Row.' The friends who were fortunate 
enough to accompany him in his drives to Sydenham, 
on those days, will recollect how much pleasure he 
and they derived from excursions which, from break- 
fast to dinner, he knew so well how to arrange, never 
forgetting those small details of comfort and luxury 
which add much to the amusement of a day passed 
amid delights of the highest intellectual order. One 
day Madame Viardot would be the life and soul of his 
party ; on another, Sir John Coleridge's quiet humor 
and genial spirits compelled every one else to enjoy it." 

Other illustrations might be added to show that 
Chorley's long term of service to Art in the capacity 
of a critic, had not chilled his ardor. That term 
nominally ended at Midsummer, 1868, when he retired 
from the musical department of the " Athenaeum," 
after thirty-five years' connection with it.* 

He continued, however, to communicate occasional 
articles on musical topics, signed with his name or 
initials, until the close of 187 1. A technical organ 
(" The Orchestra") received contributions from him 
within two months of his death. 

* He celebrated the occasion by giving a farewell dinner at Wemb- 
ley Hill, to the employes of the publishing office. His health did not 
allow of his being present, but through his friend, Mr. Francis, the 
publisher, he addressed a few kindly words of parting to his " fellow- 
workers," whom he reminded that during all the years of his service, 
" not a single angry word or doubtful transaction had passed on either 
side, and thanked with all his heart for their prompt and courteous 
punctuality, which had made not the easiest of tasks a comparatively 
light one." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Private and social life from 1852 to 1872 — Residence in Eaton Place — 
Description of the house — Parties — Extracts from letter to Liver- 
pool — Opposition to " Spiritualistic " mania — Friendship with 
Charles Dickens — Letters from him — Visits to Gad's Hill — Miss 
Dickens' reminiscences — Mr. Procter — Hawthorne — Other asso- 
ciates — Deaths of Miss Mitford and Sir Wm. Molesworth — Letter 
to Liverpool — Illness and death of his sister — Memorial sketch of 
his brother John's career — Letter from Mr. Carlyle — Professor 
Ticknor — Accession of fortune — Mental depression, loneliness, and 
failing health — A fatal expedient — Travels — Letter from Spain — 
Scarborough — Wakehurst Place — Memory of early friendship — 
Letters — Affectionate relations with Mr. Benson Rathbone — Re- 
miniscences — Death of Dickens — Acceleration of organic disease — 
Letters to Liverpool — His death, and funeral. 

THE twenty years of Chorley's residence in Eaton 
Place West are those by which he is most likely 
to be remembered in London society. In some re- 
spects they were the happiest, in others, the saddest 
of his life. On the bright side may be set the advan- 
tages of a recognized literary and social position, the 
enjoyment of one close and of many cordial intimacies, 
and the satisfaction of being able to repay a long-cher- 
ished debt of gratitude to his oldest friend, by the 
formation of a new bond of attachment. On the dark 
side, must be reckoned the increasing burdens of lone- 
liness and ill-health, the loss, in quick succession, of 
beloved associates by death, and the loss of others by 
12 



266 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

estrangement, the pain of which was aggravated by 
the sense that it was to some extent attributable to 
his own conduct. 

His new house (No. 13) claims a paragraph or two 
to itself. However unpretending externally, its inte- 
rior was almost dainty enough to deserve the praise 
bestowed upon it by Mrs. Hawthorne {ante). He used 
to speak of it as the last house in Belgravia proper, i. 
e., on the Belgrave estate, and extol it as characterized 
by all the excellencies of Cubitt's building, notwith- 
standing its small scale. Apropos of its size, he used 
to relate his interview with the estate agent, who showed 
him over it on the completion of his purchase, and 
made some apology for the narrowness of the staircase. 
" Never mind," replied Chorley ; " I shall require a very 
narrow coffin."- — " I have sold a great many leases of 
similar houses, sir, but I never heard a gentleman make 
such an observation before ! " was the astonished man's 
rejoinder. Chorley's conviction, expressed after this 
grimly-humorous fashion, that he should spend his last 
years in the house, was justified by the event, but the 
staircase was witness to many a pleasant scene before 
rendering him its final service. Always " given to 
hospitality," he had now the means which were want- 
ing in former years to fulfil his desires, and the house 
lent itself very graciously to that end. Of the princi- 
pal guests whom he used to assemble during the last 
ten years of his life, something will be said presently. 
His parties, during the earlier time of his residence 
there, were larger than he latterly attempted, and 
occasionally in excess of the accommodation. An 
absurd scene at one such party may be still remem- 



PARTIES. 



267 



bered by some who were present. The account he 
gave of it in a letter to Liverpool is worth extracting, 
if only to relieve a record which has been, and must 
be to the close, shadowed with much sadness. The 
frequently morbid tone of his temperament was con- 
sistent with a hearty enjoyment of life in other moods ; 
and no better illustration could be given than the fol- 
lowing, of his ability to extract fun out of its most 
trifling incidents. 

"Thank you, dear B., for the box of bouquets, which 
arrived duly, and made me wish anew I had you instead. 
The week is over now. Peyton, who is a very companion- 
able inmate, is gone. I had the Leslies with me, and the 
Santleys one day — the Lehmanns, too. Emily will tell you 
of my huge party on Thursday, but she could not tell you of 
one of the most whimsical things I ever saw ; no, I did not 
see it. But crinoline had so choked my drawing-room (you 

could not see a nail of carpet) that when Lady M came — 

you have seen that she is not small — in all her bravery from 
another party, there was no getting into the room. So she 
stood in the little landing with about ten men — you know 
how little the landing is. Well, fancy a procession of this 
kind arriving from below — first, a jug of hot water, second, 

a flat candle, lighted, third, H , very fat, very hot, very 

tired — too much all three to endure a crowd in a little room, 
and who thought he could creep up to bed ! I found the 
landing party in fits of entertainment at his face when he 
turned the corner of the stairs ! 

" On Friday we were but four men in the drive to Syden- 
ham (with the Sims Reeves and Miss Cushman to dinner). 

I took down E , a new acquisition — one, though not up 

to Maule (who ever will be ?), who is more in that style — 



268 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

solid, superior, gentle, and gentlemanly — than any one I 
have lately met — a man of deep learning in Oriental matters^ 

who has taken, too, to me I won't tell you how far 

this performance* surpassed that of '57 — 27,000 people 
at the ' Israel ; ' but I missed Leighton, and I missed 
you." .... 

At the houses of his friends, Chorley's presence 
was often noteworthy on account of the pronounced 
tone of his opinions on certain subjects. It will not be 
forgotten by those among his acquaintance who have 
subscribed to the tenets of spiritualism, how rigidly, 
both by word and deed, he was wont to protest against 
their theory and practice. A reference has already 
been made to his conflict of opinion on this head with 
Mrs. Browning. In connection with the resistance 
that he offered to the wider spread of the contagion 
by which her lucid mind was affected, he has left a 
chapter of reminiscence, from which an extract must 
be given, in deference to the earnestness of his 
feeling. 

"I have always, on principle, resisted swelling the crowd 
of those, professedly anxious to wait on experiments, in 
reality hungerers and thirsters after 'sensation;' the more 
since, when the imagination is once engaged, those as ner- 
vous as myself may well mistrust that which by way of term 
is so largely abused — 'the evidence of the senses.' What 
do our keenest powers of observation avail, when they are 
brought to bear on the legerdemain of a Robert Houdin, a 
JBosco (that distasteful, fat old Italian, who executed his 
wonders by the aid of hands ending arms naked to the 

* The Handel Festival of 1859. 



SPIRITUALISM. 269 

shoulder) ? What, still more, when they attempt to unravel 
the sorceries of such a conjuror as the Chevalier de Caston 
— the man who could name the cards which distant persons 
had silently taken from an unbroken pack, with his back 
turned and blindfolded, and at the distance of a drawing- 
room and a half? This, further, I saw him do. There 
were three of us sitting on an ottoman in the front room, he, 
as I have said, with his back to us, and thoroughly blind- 
folded. Two opaque porcelain slates, to all appearance 
entirely new, were brought. On one of these, each of the 
three wrote, in pencil, a question, without uttering a word. 
The slates were laid face to face, and bound together with a 
broad ribbon, thus totally clear of transparency. My ques- 
tion was, in French, ' What was the color of Cleopatra's 
hair ? ' I forget the other two. The Chevalier put his 
hands behind his chair. I placed the slates so bound in the 
two hands. He retained them a moment, without stirring 
or turning, and, to my amazement, said, ' Cleopatra dyed 
her hair, so wore all colors." The other two questions, which 
I have forgotten, were no less pertinently and explicitly 
answered. Now, even on the theory of complicity, it would 
be by no means easy to explain this feat. I can only say 
that I am satisfied I have recounted it accurately.* 

" When one Alexis was here, who was guaranteed to 
read everything, no matter how far off, however hermetically 
sealed up,t a friend of mine called on his way to a seance — no 
willing co-juggler with Alexis, I am persuaded, but leaning 
towards his marvels. He was anxious that I should bear 

* " The Chevalier de Caston, by the way, was the only professor of 
his art who succeeded in puzzling Charles Dickens, himself a consum- 
mate and experienced conjuror. 

f " Yet the reading of the number of the historical bank-note of ^"iooo 
payable to him who would pronounce it, has never, I believe, been 
accomplished." 



2 ;o REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

him company. I declined, on the argument I have staled. 
' Well,' said he, 'what would satisfy you?' Said I, 'Sup- 
posing I were to write an odd word — such a one as "orches- 
tra " — and seal it, and satisfy myself that no one could read 
it without breaking the seal, and be equally satisfied that, no 
one would mention it who was honestly disposed ' — ' Well V 
' Well, then, if it was read, I should say the guess was a 
good one — nothing more.' ' Let us try.' I went into an 
adjoining room for writing materials, and thought, as an odd 
word, of ' Pondicherry.' I wrote down this ; I satisfied my 
eyes that no one could read it unless it was tampered with. 
It was signed, sealed, and delivered. I am, at this day of 
writing, as satisfied of my friend's honor as I am of my own. 
He was to come back to dine with me and to report what 
had happened. He did come back, scared considerably, 
but in no respect disabused. ' Well,' said I, ' did he read 
my note?' ' Oh, yes, immediately ; but he read it wrong. 
He read orchestra.'' That my friend may have whispered 
' Chorley's test-word ' into some ear can hardly be doubted 
by those who are, as Hood says, ' with small belief encum- 
bered ; ' but, of his honest self, he took the performance 
as a brilliant illustration of thought-reading. 

"Almost enough of these pitiful matters. One more 
experience, however, is not unworthy of being told, as show- 
ing how the agitation was kept up, and, when denounced, 
how those denouncing it were treated. I was in the house 
of an old friend given to divers amusements and sensations, 
who, one evening, having a society rather credulous, mes- 
meric, and supernaturally disposed around her, bethought 
herself, by way of the evening's amusement, l to turn 
tables ; ' if wrappings came, so much the better. I was 
about to leave, in the fullness, or emptiness (which ?), of 
my unbelief, when I w T as especially asked to remain and be 
convinced. I felt that inquiry was impossible, and I said 



SPIRITUALISM. 



271 



so ; but in answer I was asked, ' What form of inquiry would 
satisfy me ? If I would stay, I might inquire to the utmost.' 
The answer was, a row of candles on the floor and my seat 
underneath the table. All this was cordially, kindly granted 
to the unbeliever, who had been persuaded to stay. Down 
sat the believers ; almost on the floor sat the unbeliever. 
The above made a chain of hands ; the low man watched 
their feet. The table, which I am assured bore a fair repu- 
tation among wooden oracles, was steadfast not to stir. I 
sat, and they sat, and we sat. for nearly a good half hour. 
(Happily, the abominable pretext at a prayer had been 
omitted.) At length, the eight believers became tired ; and 
the most enthusiastic among them broke up in the seance in 
' a temper.' ' There can be no experiments,' said he, ' where 
an infidel spirit prevails.' And so I went forth, branded as 
a ' spoil-sport ; ' and, as such, in a certain world, have never 
recovered the place before that time allowed me. 

"Long live legerdemain as a useless combination of 
ingenuity, memory, and mechanical appliances — owned as 
such ! But when, after seeing its perfect marvels, exhibited 
by way of dramatic show and paid for by money, one is 
invited and expected to believe in revelations which have 
never told one secret — in oracles from the dead, the best 
of which amount to the sweet spring saying, ' Grass is 
green ' — it is not wholly unnatural that with some, be they 
ever so prosaic, be they ever so imaginative, the gorge will 
rise, and the dogmatism (it may be) become stronger, if 
only because it is the inevitable descendant of the supersti- 
tion. To play with the deepest and most sacred mysteries 
of heart and brain, of love beyond the grave, of that yearn- 
ing affection which takes a thousand shapes when distance 
and suspense divide it from its object, is a fearful, an 
unholy work. If this dreary chapter, which expresses 
almost the sincerest of convictions that can influence a man 



27: 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE Y. 



towards the decline of his life, can make any one disposed 
to tamper with 'wandering thoughts and vain imaginations ' 
consider, without cant or pedantry, the argument endea- 
vored to be illustrated, it will not have been written in 
vain." 

The brightest part of these years was that which 
was illumined by his friendship with Charles Dickens. 
Their acquaintance has been referred to as dating from 
an earlier period ; but they did not become intimate 
until 1854, when an office of charity, in which both 
were interested, brought them into frequent communi- 
cation. During the last few years of Dickens's life 
they were in constant correspondence; and there was 
probably no other man of letters, with the exception 
of Mr. Forster, to whom his confidence was so entirely 
given. Amid many differences of mental and moral 
constitution, there was one salient feature in common. 
In Dickens this quality of punctuality, as Chorley used 
to describe it, was manifest in the minutest particulars. 
He himself was less scrupulously methodical ; but in 
all essential points his thorough trustworthiness was 
equally prominent. Both, too, as has been said, rec- 
ognized in one another the presence of a generous 
candor that admitted of no bar to the mutual inter- 
change of criticism. Chorley's review of " Bleak 
House," in the "Athenaeum" of 1853, mingled praise 
and blame with even more discrimination than Dick- 
ens employed in his before-cited estimate of " Rocca- 
bella." How highly his friend's favorable verdict was 
valued by the great novelist may be judged from the 
following note, addressed to Chorley after the appear- 
ance of his review of " Our Mutual Friend : " 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



2/3 



" Office of ' All the Year Round,' 

" No. 20, Wellington Street, Strand, W. C. 

" Saturday, 28th of October, 1865. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" I find your letter here only to-day. I shall be delighted 
to dine with you on Tuesday, the 7th, but I cannot answer 
for Mary, as she is staying with the Lehmanns. To the best 
of my belief, she is coming to Gad's this evening to dine 
with a neighbor. In that case, she will immediately answer 
for herself. I have seen the ' Athenaeum,' and most heartily 
and earnestly thank you. Trust me, there is nothing I could 
have wished away, and all that I read there affects and 
delights me. I feel so generous an appreciation and sympa- 
thy so very strongly, that if I were to try to write more, I 
should blur the words by seeing them dimly. 

" Ever affectionately yours, 

" C. D." 



Such other relics of Dickens's large correspondence 
with him as Chorley has preserved (the bulk of it hav- 
ing been deliberately destroyed), attest the thorough 
sympathy that subsisted between the two. On no 
occasion of his life, when he needed help, great or 
small, whether consolation under affliction, counsel in 
the settlement of a dispute, or as to the adaptation of 
his voice to a lecture-room, did Dickens fail to render 
it. More than once during these years, when bowed 
down by the weight of loneliness, ill-health, and sor- 
row, he was absorbed in moods of utter depression, or 
driven to adopt the most fatal of expedients for remov- 
ing it, the clear healthy sense of Dickens was felt by 
him as a tower of strength ; and it was doubtless a 
remembrance of the influence extended at such times 



274 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

that dictated the language of a grateful bequest to his 
friend, as to one by whom he had been " greatly 
helped." 

Two or three miscellaneous notes which he received 
from Dickens are subjoined, to illustrate the terms on 
which they stood. 

" 16 Hyde Park Gate, 
" South Kensington Gore W. 
" Saturday, 1st March, 1862. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" I was at your lecture * this afternoon, and I hope I may 
venture to tell you that I was extremely pleased and inter- 
ested. Both the matter of the materials and the manner of 
their arrangement were quite admirable, and a modesty and 
complete absence of any kind of affectation pervaded the 
whole discourse, which was quite an example to the many 
whom it concerns. If you could be a very little louder, and 
would never let a sentence go for the thousandth part of an 
instant, until the last word is out, you would find the audi- 
ence more responsive. A spoken sentence will never run 
alone in all its life, and is never to be trusted to itself in its 
most insignificant member. See it well out — with the voice 
— and the part of the audience is made surprisingly easier. 
In that excellent description of the Spanish mendicant and 
his guitar, as well as in the very happy touches about the 
dance and the castanets, the people were really desirous to 
express very hearty appreciation ; but by giving them rather 
too much to do in watching and listening for latter words, 
you stopped them. I take the liberty of making the remark, 
as one who has fought with beasts (oratorically) in divers 
arenas. For the rest, nothing could be better. Knowledge, 
* The first of the series on " National Music." 



NOTES FROM DICKENS. 



2/5 



ingenuity, neatness, condensation, good sense, and good taste 
in delightful combination. 

" Affectionately always, 

" C. D." 

" Gad's Hill Tlace, 
" Higham by Rochester, Kent. 
" Friday, December 18th, 1863. 

u My dear Chorley : — 

" This is a ' Social Science ' note touching prospective 
engagements. 

" If you are obliged, as you were last year, to go away 
between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, then we rely 
upon your coming back to see the old year out. Furthermore, 
I rely upon you for this : Lady Molesworth says she will 
come down for a day or two, and I have told her that I shall 
ask you to be her escort, and to arrange a time. Will you 
take counsel with her, and arrange accordingly ? After our 
family visitors are gone, Mary is going a-hunting in Hamp- 
shire ; but if you and Lady Molesworth could make out from 
Saturday, the 9th of January, as your day of coming together, 
or for any day between that and Saturday, the 16th, it would 
be beforehand with her going, and would suit me excellently. 

There is a new officer at the dockyard, vice Mrs. (now an 

admiral), and I will take that opportunity of paying him and 
his wife the attention of asking them to dine in these gor- 
geous halls. For all of which reasons, if the Social Science 
Congress of two could meet and arrive at a conclusion, the 
conclusion would be thankfully booked by the illustrious 
writer of these lines. 

" On Christmas Eve, there is a train from your own Vic- 
toria Station at 4.35 p.m., which will bring you to Strood 
(Rochester Bridge Station) in an hour, and there a majestic 
form will be descried in a basket. 

"Yours affectionately, 

"C. D." 



2 ;6 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

" Gad's Hill Place, 
" Higham by Rochester, Kent 
" Sunday, June 2d, 1867. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" Thank God I have come triumphantly through the 
heavy work of the fifty-one readings, and am wonderfully 
fresh. I grieve to hear of your sad occupation.* You 
know where to find rest, and quiet, and sympathy, when you 
can change the dreary scene. I saw poor dear Stanfield 
(on a hint from his eldest son) in a day's interval between 
two expeditions. It was clear that the shadow of the end 
had fallen on him. It happened well that I had seen, on a 
wild day at Tynemouth, a remarkable sea-effect, of which I 
wrote a description to him, and he had kept it under his 
pillow. This place is looking very pretty. The freshness 
and repose of it, after all those thousands of gas-lighted 
faces, sink into the soul." 

[The remainder has been cut off for the signature.] 



" Gad's Hill Place, 
" Higham by Rochester, Kent. 
" Wednesday, 3d July, 1867. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" I am truly sorry to receive your letter (it reaches me 
to-day), and yet cannot but feel relieved that your main 
anxiety and distress are terminated. At this time, as at all 
others, believe me that you have no truer friend or one 
more interested in all that interests you than I am. 
" Affectionately yours ever, 

" Charles Dickens.' 

* The allusion, in this and the following letter, is to Chorley's at- 
tendance at his brother's death-bed. 



CHORLE Y AT GAD'S HILL. 



277 



At Gad's Hill, Chorley was always a welcome 
guest, and his days of retreat and refreshment there 
were among the happiest he ever spent. A fresh and 
pleasant picture of them is afforded in the subjoined 
reply which Miss Dickens made to Mr. Hewlett's 
inquiries respecting his relations with her father. 

" 81, Gloucester Terrace, 
" Aug. 20, 1872. 

" My dear Mr. Hewlett : — 

"I can't exactly tell you when my father first 

knew Mr. Chorley, but a great many years before he became 
intimate with him. About the year 1854, my father was 
much interested about getting a pension for two literary 
persons, friends both of his and of Mr. Chorley. He then 
wrote to Mr. Chorley on the subject, and he — always ready 
to do anything good and kind — exerted himself a great deal 
in the matter. This business brought them a good deal 
together, and from that time till my dear father's death, 
they" were fast friends. Mr. Chorley used to come con- 
stantly to Gad's Hill, used often to invite himself, and was 
always most welcome. People who were in the habit of 
seeing him only in London would hardly have known him 
at Gad's Hill, I think. He was a brighter and younger 
being altogether there. He would be clown punctually to 
breakfast by nine o'clock, very often earlier; would occupy 
himself writing, or reading, etc., all the morning, and, after 
luncheon, set off for a long walk with my father. I remem- 
ber one day our going for a picnic a long way off; some of 
our party driving, some walking. When we started to 
return, we all took it for granted that Mr. Chorley would 
drive. But my father walking, he walked too. It was a hot 
summer's day, and they did eighteen miles, — walking, as my 
father always did, at a good pace ; and Mr. Chorley came 



278 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

down to dinner as bright and as fresh as possible. This 
sort of thing for most men is, of course, no matter for sur- 
prise ; but to those who knew Mr. Chorley, and his apparent- 
ly weak J>/iysigue, it was quite wonderful to see how much he 
could do. He was always ready for any game, charade, or 
impromptu amusement of any sort, and was capable at it. 
One Christmas my father proposed, quite suddenly, that we 
should have some charades. They were to be a dumb pan- 
tomime, and Mr. Chorley was to play the piano. He imme- 
diately began to practise music suitable for the different 
scenes. And when the evening arrived, he came down 
dressed up in the queerest way, and sat down to the piano, 
in a meek and unobtrusive manner, being a poor old musi- 
cian, and very shy, and very shabby, and very hungry, and 
wretched-looking altogether. He played this part admirably 
the whole evening, and his get up was excellent. A great 
many of the audience didn't know him at first. He had 
made a secret about this dressing-up, and had done it all by 
himself; and I met him on the stairs and didn't know him ! 
He was most innocently proud of the success of his self- 
invented part. 

" I think he was a truly kind and charitable man, doing 
all sorts of good and generous deeds in a quiet, unostenta- 
tious way. I do not suppose anybody really in need ever ap- 
plied to him in vain. And I know he has given a helping hand 
to several young musicians, who, without the aid of this kind 
hand, could not have risen to be what they now are. He 
was very grateful for any love and attention shown to him, 
and never forgot a kindness done to him. I believe he 
loved my father better than any man in the world ; was 
grateful to him for his friendship, and truly proud of possess- 
ing it, which he certainly did to a very large amount. My 
father was very fond of him, and had the greatest respect for 
his honest, straightforward, upright, and generous character. 



MR. PROCTER. 



2/9 



I think, and am very glad to think, that the happiest days 
of Mr. Chorley's life — his later life, that is to say — were 
passed at Gad's Hill. 

" After my father's death, and before we left the dear old 
home, Mr. Chorley wrote and asked me if I would send him 
a branch off each of our large cedar-trees, as a remembrance 
of the place. My friend, and his dear friend, Mrs. Lehmann, 
saw him lying calm and peaceful in his coffin, with a large 
green branch on each side of him. She did not understand 
what this meant, but I did, and was much touched, as, of 
course, he had given orders that these branches should be 
laid with him in his coffin. So a piece of the place he loved 
so much, for its dear master's sake, went down to the grave 
with him. For myself, I have lost as kind, as generous, and 
as true a friend as it is possible to have had. 
" I remain, dear Mr. Hewlett, 

" Yours sincerely, 

" Mamie Dickens. 

" I find, on consulting with my aunt, that I have made a 
mistake about the pension. It was Mr. Chorley who wrote 
first to my father about it." 

Of Chorley's older friends a few still remained to 
him. Among the most valued was Mr. Procter, hap- 
pily still surviving, the last of the old " poets." A 
little note received from him in 1866 has in it so much 
of the poet's delicate grace, that we add it to those 
which already enrich these volumes : — 

" Essington's Hotel, Malvern Wells, 
" 7th August, 1866. 
" Many thanks, my dear Chorley (and they are many), 
for your kind letter. It has gratified me very much. I am 



280 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

so much out of the world now — so far in that dark desert 
which goes by the name of old age — that a little kindness 
seems to bring me face to face again with the laughing, mov- 
ing world. I come out of the wood, and shake hands with 
pleasant people that I used to know, once more. I think 
myself young again (i. e. about sixty or seventy) when, in 
infirmity of speech and motion, I am almost a century. My 
soldiers, however, are not ioo men, but ioo years, which I 
tread upon and try to forget. We are here gathering quiet 
and health (and, it seems, a few compliments) on the side 
of the Malvern Hills. Edith, I rejoice to say, is much better. 
Our principal acquaintances are the wonderful strong- 
winged swallows, which shoot through the air like thought — ■ 
who never rest, but go gliding through life without noise, and 
eventually (about Michaelmas) go upwards to near the moon, 
and are lost. I never was so thoroughly possessed by the 
power, and swiftness, and beauty of this dream in feathers 
before. If I were young again, I would risk some verses 
upon it. What a fine movement in music it might inspire ! 
My writing (the mechanical part of it) is done with so much 
difficulty, that I refrain from saying more than that I am at 
all times 

" Your very sincere 

"B. W. Procter." 



Among new and distinguished acquaintance made 
by Chorley in these years was Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
An imperfect sketch of the manner in which they met, 
of the impression left by the man, and the mingled 
admiration and regret inspired by the author, was in- 
tended to form part of a chapter of autobiography de- 
voted to the subject of American characteristics, not 
otherwise of sufficient importance to deserve insertion : 



HAWTHORNE. 2 Sl 

"March, 1870. — At the instant of closing this chapter of 
recollections I read of the death of the widow of the greatest 
and choicest author of fiction whom America has till now 
produced, Nathaniel Hawthorne. This sets me free to write 
concerning that singular original man what I know and have 
seen of him in England. 

' : From the first appearance, in an American magazine, 
of those delicious and individual stories, subsequently col- 
lected and given forth as 'Twice Told Tales,' it was evident 
that something as exquisite as it was finished was added to 
the world's stores of fiction. I am bold to say that there 
could not be two opinions among open-minded persons, be 
the English ever so 'slow to move ' (as the author of ' De 
Vere' has it). They were quicker, however, in Hawthorne's 
case than they were in America. But it is one of my greatest 
pleasures, as a journalist, to recollect that I was the first who 
had the honor of calling attention to these tales when they 
appeared in the form of periodical articles. What Haw- 
thorne's reputation has since grown into — a universal fame 
— I need not recount. From the first, I followed its growth 
at a distance, step by step, with the pleasure which one has 
of seeing dawn brightening into day, and day ripening into 
noon, without the slighest idea that I should ever see or ever 
be known to him. That I wished to form some idea of the 
man, as distinct from the author, is no less true. The sole 
idea I could ' realise ' (as the Americans say) was one of his 
invincible shyness. No one had seen him, or met him, or 
known him ; so ran the legend. It was a clear case of mys- 
tery, in its way, I have since come to think, as fondly pro- 
moted and cherished by the romancer as that of the ' Great 
Unknown.' 

" There is small need to recall how, subsequently, appeared 
a second miscellany, ' Mosses from an Old Manse ' (among 
other legends, containing that ghastliest of stories, ' Rapac- 



282 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

cini's Daughter'), then 'The Scarlet Letter,' and the yet 
more original 'House of Seven Gables,' 'The Blithedale 
Romance,' and, lastly, 'Transformation.' Such works of art 
as these, like all real creations, must make their way. It was 
then with no common interest I heard that his own country, 
by way of paying due honor to Hawthorne, was doing its 
utmost for him by appointing him to the consulate at Liver- 
pool. At the same time it was told me that, on accepting 
the appointment, he inquired whether the American consul 
would, ex officio, be obliged to talk much, and on being told 
not, in reply, laconically said, ' Thank God ! ' " 

" When I heard that Hawthorne was to live at Liverpool 
as American consul, it seemed clear that, with some knowl- 
edge of the best, most liberal, and most delicately-minded of 
those who then, as now, dispensed public hospitality and 
private kindliness in the town, I might justifiably write to 
him, and refer him to them, in case he should stand in need 
of society and private sympathy, totally apart from anything 
like the tinselled folly of liojtism. I did so, and received no 
answer to my letter. Hawthorne established himself, as his 
Memoirs have told us, at Rock Ferry, in Cheshire, enjoyed 
as much as he cared to enjoy, and afterwards retired into 
that sulky, suspicious mood (of a consul taking pay ?) which 
befits a misunderstood hero. To myself, and those to whom 
I sent him, he responded by neither ' look, word, nor sign.' ' 

" After some natural disappointment, I naturally came to 
forget the man, and to think only of his admirable books. 
It was, then, with surprise that, some years later, I received a 
note from a boarding-house in Golden Square, in which Haw- 
thorne announced his arrival in London, and his great desire 
to see me before he returned home (' as one,' etc., etc., etcet- 
era). I answered this in person, and found, what I might 
have been sure of, a most genial and original man, full of life, 
full of humor, in no respect shy. He agreed at once to pass 



INTIMATES. 283 

a day with me. I gave him the option of a party or no party. 
He chose the latter alternative. A pleasanter day than the 
one in question is not in my ' Golden Book.' I think I have 
never heard any one, save my honored friend Carlyle, laugh 
so heartily as did Hawthorne. It is generally a nervous 
business to receive those to whom one has long looked up ; 
but it was not the least so in his case. The impression I 
received was one of a man genial, and not over sensitive, 
even when we could make merry on the subject of national 
differences and susceptibilities. 

" This experience, it may well be believed, has made me 
read with an amazement almost approaching distress the 
book Hawthorne published on his return home, and, later, 
the selections from his manuscript journals, put forward by 
his widow. It is hard to conceive the existence of so much 
pettiness in a man so great and real ; of such a resolution to 
brood over fancied slights and strange formalities, yet, withal, 
to generalise so widely on such narrow premises ; of such 
vulgarity in one who had written for the public so exquis- 
itely. It is difficult to accept such a writer's criticisms on 
' the steaks and sirloins ' of English ladies. I still remem- 
ber Hester Prynne and Pearl, in the 'Scarlet Letter,' and 
Phcebe and Hepzibah, in the ' House of the Seven Gables,' 
and ask myself how far the case in point proves the adage 
that there is nothing so essentially nasty as refinement. The 
tone of these English journals is as small and peevish as if 
their writer had been thwarted and overlooked, instead of 
waited on by hearty offers of service, which in most cases 
were declined almost as persistently as if they had been so 
many affronts. A more puzzling case of inconsistency and 
duality has never come before me." 

Nearly all the leading - names connected with art 
and literature in England, besides a considerable num- 



284 REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE Y. 

ber of those prominent in society, were now on the list 
of Chorley's acquaintance ; but the few only with 
whom he was most intimate need here be enumerated : 
Mr. Frederick Leighton,* Sir Arthur Helps, Mr. (now 
Lord) Lytton, Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Sir John 
Coleridge, Mr. Eastwick, Dr. Seemann, Lady Down- 
shire, Mrs. Milner Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. Von Glehn, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Lehmann. His associates 
in the musical world have already, been named : in 
theatrical circles, the late Charles Kean,f Madame 

* Mr. Leighton's future was foreseen by Chorley from the first. 
Writing of him to a friend in January, 1856, he speaks of him as "the 
most promising and accomplished young man of genius whom I have 
seen for very many years." 

f A letter from Charles Kean, acknowledging a tribute of Chorley's 
critical approval, evinces so high an appreciation of his judgment that 
it must not be omitted : — 
" My dear Sir : — 

" Among the many letters of congratulation I have received on 
Louis- XI., none has afforded me such unmingled pleasure as yours, and 
the more so, that it was quite unexpected, and has taken me by surprise. 
I had fancied (erroneously or not) that a certain prejudice against me 
had laid hold of your mind, resulting more from the opinions of others 
than your own unbiassed judgment. 

" I have suffered much during my professional career from more than 
one hostile clique, whose pertinacious efforts have won converts to their 
views, who were of themselves disposed to be friendly ; and I know how 
readily, and, perhaps, insensibly, impressions are taken up under the 
influence of a prevailing atmosphere. The tone of your letter assures 
me of your perfect sincerity, and gives a double value to your encomiums. 
I rejoice that I have gained the good opinion of a sound critic, and, be 
assured, I fully appreciate the warmth and manly straightforwardness 
with which you have communicated it to me. The manner is, if possible, 
even more satisfactory than the matter. 
" I remain, my dear sir, 

" Yours very truly and obliged, 

" Charles Kean. 

"24th Jan., 1855." 



LOSS OF OLD FR LENDS. 285 

Ristori, Mr. A. Wigan, Mr. Fechter, Mr. Sothern, and 
Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, may be particularly men- 
tioned. 

It was fortunate that his capacity of making new 
friends remained unexhausted, for the number of his 
old associates was fast waning. Two died a few months 
after each other in 1855: Miss Mitford and Sir Wil- 
liam Molesworth. The void made by the latter loss 
was the widest ; his eminent character inspiring an 
admiration which made his regard as honorable as it 
was delightful, and opportunities of companionship 
with him having of late years increased in frequency. 
Chorley's new house was close to that of Sir William, 
in Eaton Place, and Pencarrow was always open to 
him when the season was over. 

A heavier if a less acute trial than bereavement was 
prolonged for eleven years, in witnessing the suffer- 
ings of his sister, referred to in a previous chapter. 
This, while it was a constant source of anxiety to him, 
developed one of his worthiest traits. So long as her 
condition permitted her to drive in the open air, he 
made it part of his daily duty, however much occupied, 
to accompany her on these occasions, relieving the 
guard of his brother John, at other times her devoted 
sick-nurse. No memorial of Miss Chorley that would 
be generally interesting can here be added, beyond 
the impression which she has left of indomitable for- 
titude. An old friend, who has been present during 
the paroxysms of her cruel malady, remembers how 
stoically she would decline the smallest proffer of ser- 
vice. Even the handkerchief that bathed her stream- 



236 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

ing brow she insisted on lifting with her own trem- 
bling fingers.* She was released by death in 1863. 

Of his brother John, the last near relative for 
whom he retained affection, Chorley has left a detailed 
reminiscence. It was his cherished hope, that by 
means of the following sketch, which was intended to 
form a prominent chapter of his own memoirs, a tardy 
tribute of justice might be rendered to the yet unre- 
cognised merits of a remarkable man. 

" And here I must turn for a while from the tale of my 
own small troubles and smaller successes, to fulfil what is 
with me imperative as a duty. 

" To attempt some memorial of a deceased relative is, 
under the best of circumstances, a labor of melancholy love. 
The sadness of the task, however, is deepened when the 
youngest — almost the last of his name — has to speak of the 
shadowed life of a noble-hearted and highly-gifted brother, 
who passed away known to only a very few, and appreciated 
according to his deserts by still fewer persons ; neverthe- 
less, one of the men of mark of his time. This duty I have 
to perform in regard to John Rutter Chorley. It is one of 
no common difficulty. If anything is to be put on record 
concerning the dead, it should be the whole truth, without 
exaggerated praise or plea of mitigation. There is no sin- 
gle survivor who can protest against such a course in the 
present case ; but the very solitariness of position on the 

* The late Mrs. Gaskell was much attached to her, and would often 
cheer her sick-bed by a letter. Replying, in 1854, to a grateful 
acknowledgment by Chorley of this kindness, Mrs. Gaskeli wrote : 
" Don't speak of gratitude. I love Miss Chorley, and am only too glad 
to do anything that may give her a moment's pleasure, only I am afraid 
my letters must be dull." 



y. R.CHORLEY. 287 

part of the memorialist which this implies adds largely to 
his responsibilities. I have not written what will follow this, 
without questioning myself most strictly. 

" It is hardly possible for two children of the same pa- 
rents, who lived to the verge of manhood together, and had 
been interested from childhood upwards in all that belongs 
to the world of imagination, to differ more widely in dispo- 
sition, in many matters of opinion, practice, and the ordering 
of life, than did my brother and myself. But though there 
was little companionship between us, there was entire and 
unbroken confidence till the last. I felt that in any juncture 
of perplexity, or where essential and accurate service was 
required, I had a wall of strength to shelter under and to 
lean against, which nothing could shake ; so deep were its 
foundations, so sound was its structure. I hope that few 
will be called on to experience the desolation of spirit which 
came over me as I stood by the side of his grave, and knew 
that this was taken away from me for ever. 

" I may say, in a word, that he was more gifted than ge- 
nial — gifted in right of a probity, which no provocation could 
undermine and no temptation shake; in right of a versatility, 
combined with accuracy of knowledge, which I have never 
known surpassed in any human being ; a versatility which 
embraced every manly exercise of body, as well as every 
mental accomplishment and acquirement ; but he was en- 
dowed with that almost morbid quickness of insight into 
character and motives, accompanied by a strangely intense 
physical sensitiveness, which is too apt to engender severity 
and impatience of judgment. It might have been thought by 
some who came to know him in the maturity of his life, that 
1 e had been coerced and warped by those influences which 
bear so fatally on those who are set forth as prodigies ; but 
such was not the case. What he was, my brother made him- 
self, with a direct purpose and a clear view of his own, in 



288 REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 

spite of great and grave disadvantages. And when I think 
of all that he achieved and wrought out, with a finish and a 
self-consistency rare in these days of show and surface, I am 
justified in saying that, under happier circumstances, he might 
have been one of the leading men of his time, in what- 
ever world of action, intellectual and administrative, he had 
entered. 

" His imagination was as quick and versatile as his power 
to retain accurate knowledge was great. I have told how, 
in our childish days, spent in great seclusion, we were neces- 
sarily thrown on our own resources for variety and entertain- 
ment. He had the precocious fancy of a born poet. As has 
been the case with other gifted children, he could amuse 
himself by inventing creatures as little mortal as the Glums 
and the Gowries, finding them with adventures that went on 
from month to month, fitting them up with vocabularies of 
their own, writing their history in neatly-kept books, and 
gracing the same with pictures. He had the painter's 
hand and the painter's capacity, and drew with force and 
exactness, with more sense of form than of color. As years 
went on, this accomplishment was turned to a peculiar ac- 
count — that of calligraphy. He was born, too, with strong 
musical tastes, and would not rest till he had gained some 
proficiency on one or two instruments, with the solitary prac- 
tice of one of which — the violoncello — he soothed his har- 
assed nerves and wearied spirits in the latter part of his life. 
Boyhood was scarcely over when he began to write serious 
and sentimental verses, with a finish and an absence of imi- 
tation rare even among those who have lived to win repute 
as great and original poets. The larger portion of these 
(many of which merited a better fate) were disdained and 
ruthlessly destroyed by him a few years before his death. I 
had some share in rescuing a few, which are laid away in 



y. R. CHORLEY. 289 

print, among forgotten books, possibly not always to be for- 
gotten ; and when I see what verse can be accepted, and 
make a diseased reputation for its authors, in these our days, 
I turn to a tiny volume,* passed over on its appearance, save 
by a very few readers, and am assured to myself, that I am 
doing neither dead nor living poets wrong, by asserting that 
there is within it an amount of fantasy in form, of truth to 
scenery, and of finish in execution which are not common at 
the time lately past or present. 

" On going over the heaps of my brother's papers, 
arranged and laid away with a scrupulous exactitude and 
neatness, I came on a singular confession, one of those which 
mark a character in a manner not to be misunderstood — a 
series of reverie-poems, written by himself on his birthdays 
as they came round. The healthiness of such a course of 
perpetual retrospect and introspection may well be doubted. 
If the poetry of intimate affection, even should it take such a 
vividly passionate form as Mrs. Browning's ' Sonnets from 
the Portuguese,' is to be mistrusted, the resolute soliloquies 
of a mind preying on itself, and turning from the outer world 
of sunshine, and motion, and change, to the solitary cloister, 
paved with the graves of hopes unfulfilled and of joys disap- 
pointed, are yet more painful and bootless. I will not dese- 
crate these verses (though some of them are of extreme 
beauty) by publishing them ; but the fact of their produc- 
tion and the spirit they breathe are not to be overlooked 
in completion of the portrait of a man little understood, 
because thoroughly original, and, with little exception, self- 
consistent. 

"My brother was singularly handsome, with such a 
sweet, refined, expressive countenance and a perfect figure as 

* " The Wife's Litany," and other poems. Chapman & Hall. 1865 
13 



290 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE 



are rarely met with in combination. I have said that he was 
adroit at every manly exercise. When he was barely eleven 
years old, I remember his doing a day's mowing of twelve 
hours by the side of grown laborers. He used to evade pur- 
suit or summons of justice by climbing trees to a dangerous 
height, and making his own conditions before he consented 
to descend. On our removal to a seaport town, he became 
a skilled waterman, and took that intimate delight in ships 
and shipping which never failed him to the last. He could 
ride and dance w r ell, and was capable of enduring great 
fatigue without apparent effort. 

"When my mother removed to Liverpool, in the year 
181 9, he was placed at the school of the Royal Institution, 
which had been only recently opened. The classical educa- 
tion there, under the head-mastership of the Rev. John 
Boughey Monk, was excellent. In those days, the teaching 
of modern languages (which might have been thought indis- 
pensable in a town where the scholars were principally the 
sons of merchants, destined for commerce,) was strangely 
neglected. Mr. Monk, a ripe scholar and an amiable man, 
as every one of his pupils has cause gratefully to remember, 
was soon attracted by the singular facility with which my 
brother acquired and retained knowledge, but almost as 
much perplexed by its excess. Of course, there was no 
teaching him alone, and though he was one of the youngest 
boys in the school, he rose at once to the head of the first 
class, making light of every task and lesson, and mastering 
the Greek and Latin classics with a rapidity and fluency 
which distanced his schoolmates. The abundance of spare 
time was spent in every sort of mischief, to the delight and 
temptation of his class-fellows. They had, however, gener- 
ally one advantage over him, which they were not slow to 
make him feel. Most of them were the sons of rich parents, 
well dressed and liberally provided with pocket-money. He 



J. R. CHORLE Y. 29 1 

was as bare in both respects as was ever poor scholar ; and 
(a further disadvantage in a town where ' Church and State ' 
was so long the reigning motto) was known to belong to a 
family whose peculiar form of dissent laid them open to 
the sharpest ridicule and contempt. With all these things 
against him, his extreme energy of nature and the conscious- 
ness of possessing no ordinary powers bore him up, not un- 
happily, through those trying school-days. I recollect, on 
one occasion, that in punishment of some freak of more 
flagrant insubordination than usual, he was enjoined to get 
by heart as much of the '^Eneid ' as he could, to repeat next 
morning before the business of the day commenced. He 
was called up duly, and without stop or faltering, went 
through the entire first book, to the great inconvenience, 
astonishment, and pride of his preceptor. He was beginning 
the second, with equal certainty and coolness, when he was 
bidden to cease. The master gave in. There was no 
bringing such a mercurial being to his senses by an ' impo- 
sition.' Corporal punishment was not then allowed in the 
school of the Royal Institution. It was, probably, a relief 
when he left it, qualified, though so young, as far as the dead 
languages were concerned, for either University. 

" In what manner he gathered his knowledge of French, 
German, Spanish, and Italian I cannot form an idea. With 
the exception of a few lessons in the first language from a 
poor nonenity of a native, fit only for the very moderate 
requirements of ladies' provincial boarding-schools, I believe 
he had no instruction whatsoever. -But he grasped every 
opportunity of self improvement with the eagerness which 
marked his character. He picked up German rapidly and 
with facility from the young men of his own age who were 
sent to merchants' houses in Liverpool, and, for awhile, 
addicted himself with passionate admiration to the great 
authors of the country — passionate, because it implied a cer- 



292 



REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 



tain comparative disparagement of all French literature. 
Yet he was one of the first and best translators of Beranger's 
lyrics. I think, too, that, as many holding like preferences 
have also done, he exaggerated certain points of national 
character somewhat unfairly. Those who are themselves 
the most sincere are sometimes, in cases elect, the least 
alive to insincerity and profession in others. In brief, as I 
had occasion to remark when we travelled in Germany 
together, he accepted and made allowances for peculiarities 
which would naturally have been repulsive to him. As life 
went on, he became even more strongly interested in Span- 
ish literature, possibly because it has been less hackneyed 
of these later times. In particular, the rich and varied dra- 
ma of the country engaged him, as the library of the British 
Museum testifies, in a rather remarkable fashion. I believe 
that the collection of plays by Lope de Vega, bequeathed 
by him, with his other Spanish books, to that great estab- 
lishment, is almost, if not altogether, the most copious and 
accurate one in being. It is a monument of his ingenuity 
and industry in more ways than one. Complete copies of 
many of the plays are very scarce ; but he laid hands on 
incomplete ones wherever they could be found ; and there 
are cases where four or five half-destroyed books were laid 
under contribution, and so artfully connected as to supply 
the desideratum. What was more, when a title-page was 
wanting, his exquisite power and patience as a calligrapher 
enabled him to supply one, such as might deceive any save 
the cleverest of experts. He had paper bought up and 
manufactured for this express purpose. When I came to 
look into his library before its dispersion, I found pamphlet- 
cases full of stray leaves carefully husbanded, and leaf after 
leaf traced, with as much minute care as if his life had had 
no other object or purpose, and preserved as stores of refer- 
ence. That his very remarkable attainments in respect to 



J. R. CHORLEY. 293 

these subjects gradually became known, was attested by the 
fact, that the Academy of Letters at Madrid requested per- 
mission to print, at its own expense, his catalogue of the 
plays of Lope de Vega, written (with codices) in Spanish, 
as the most complete one extant. This was done. The 
original beautiful manuscript is to be found in the Library 
of the British Museum. To make the feat more noticeable, 
it should be added, "that the writer during his life passed 
only three months in Spain, being summoned there by busi- 
ness far more prosaic than the haunting of libraries or the 
rummaging of old bookshops. 

" To those who only knew the outer man in his maturity, 
the above description may seem over-colored. But such 
was my brother as a boy, as a young man, and a man of 
letters. I have not overstated one single gift or grace. 
Others, more important to the well-being of a man, to him- 
self and all around him, have to be added. 

" His life was complete in another respect : from its 
earliest to its last hours, he was one of the most just, high- 
hearted, and generous of human beings. Meanness or false- 
hood were impossible to him, though he was tried under 
circumstances sufficient to have warped any one less hon- 
orable by justice and principle. He was, perhaps, too 
indignant and severe on those who fell short of his own high 
standard. He could sacrifice himself, but found it hard to 
forgive others less equal to sacrifice. His exquisitely fasti- 
dious taste and keen insight into character made him, in 
general intercourse, especially of later years, too uncom- 
promising and unwilling to concede in small things. But 
that the truth of heart was there, none of those to whom he 
professed affection, and to whom he devoted himself as few 
have done, could doubt. 

" Such being the boy, with his aspirations and his pre- 
cocious attainments, he was nevertheless thrust into a Liver- 



2 9 4 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



pool merchant's office, with a view to livelihood and advance- 
ment in fortune. His guardian was a timid man (save in 
his own profession as a physician), and had no time to con- 
sider the dispositions and propensities of those thrust by ill- 
fortune on his generous and unselfish care. How my brother 
mastered all the drudgery of office- work, and found time for 
mischief to boot, is not to be forgotten. When anything 
had to be done to the moment, he was called out and pre- 
ferred to elder man of routine. His keen and upright intel- 
ligence could not (as was seen in the sequel of his life) be 
misunderstood by even the exacting men of business whose 
servant he was. 

" And the exactions of those Liverpool mercantile times, 
before telegraphs were, or the immediate reproduction of a 
written letter was possible, were terrible — a slavery ill-com- 
pensated for by any indulgence or hope of advancement. 
The writing of * circulars,' otherwise, the recopying of letters 
addressed at the last moment to the American cotton-ports, 
by the going packet, was not a light task. I have known it 
last as long as till two o'clock in the morning. The men 
who ordained such servitude for their gain's sake were the 
very same men who had protested against and broken down 
American slavery! A clerk in a Liverpool merchant's 
office, when we were young, was expected to be a mere 
machine — neither a gentleman by birth nor a man of educa- 
tions, still a man of individual propensities. It was a terrible 
subjection ; though, as I can now see, looking back to the 
whole story and its system, one taken for granted by all 
concerned in the matter, and for which the authorities were 
only to blame, in right of their self- approval. 

" Into such a life as this we were tumbled. When my 
turn came, I was incurably unpunctual, lazy, and inexact ; 
loathing my life with a disgust and bitterness not to be 
expressed or concealed. When I have a bad dream, now 



J. R. CHORLE V. 295 

that I am old, the night-mare, as often as not, takes some 
form referable to an abhorred servitude. I see ledgers which 
will not be balanced, figures wrongly set down, and wake in 
the midst of such shame and self-disrespect as made up my 
normal state in those days. Had I not got up on summer 
mornings to draw, or rather paint, a little, ere the clock 
struck the abominable hour, I should not have been living to 
tell the tale of my failures in Cropper, Benson & Co.'s 
office, in Paradise Street, Liverpool. But with my brother 
it was different. He was no more fitted for taking down the 
particulars of ships' cargoes, or transcribing the details of the 
day's cotton -market ten times over than I was ; but he could 
not bear to do anything short of his best. In those days, he 
was neat, shrewd, and ready beyond many a man twice or 
thrice as old as himself; and as such, in spite of conceits and 
faults of manner, and tastes which set him apart from his 
associates (a strange set of worthy beings), made himself 
respected, as one whose work was of first-rate quality. 

" He wanted one thing — that determination to break 
away from an uncongenial life which every man, aware of 
certain tastes and aspirations, and willing to take on himself 
the consequence of his non-conformity, will do well to act on 
and abide by. So he wrought out his term of servitude, to 
enter, at its close, on another more characteristic of the high 
respect his sterling qualities had inspired, of responsibilities 
enormous for so young a man, under which the joy of his 
early manhood was utterly crushed out, which prematurely 
aged him, which, in some sort, separated him from those 
with whom he was entitled to consort, till it was too late for 
a reserved and fastidious man to change his habits, and 
which, I have no doubt, in no small degree tended to wear 
him to his grave. 

"Those were the early days of English railroads. At 
the time of which I speak, one only, to be traversed by steam, 



2g6 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIE Y. 



had been made — the short line between Liverpool and Man- 
chester, so disastrously inaugurated by Huskisson's death. 
The second to be was that from Liverpool to Birmingham — 
a scheme pronounced to be a dream by glib critics of the 
time, such as Dr. Lardner, who declared an Atlantic steamer 
to be a castle of the air, on the sea. The north country men 
held a stronger faith in the new discovery; and it was to be 
tried on a more extended scale than betwixt Liverpool and 
Manchester. The money was forthcoming ; the company 
was formed ; and when the working features, so to say, of the 
scheme were got together, they amounted to the promise of 
Stephenson's collaboration and a writing apparatus in a secre- 
tary's office. That secretary was my brother, still a very 
young and untried man ; but the solicitor to the concern was 
a man of rare refinement and observation. Chance had 
thrown our family under his notice, and he had the wise cour- 
age to pick out my brother as the most competent man he could 
propose, to adventure on duties and functions one half of 
which, at the time referred to, had to be created. 

" The ill-will and opposition which this appointment 
caused are no more to be forgotten than things of yesterday. 
My brother had to enter on his duties without sympathy from 
any man concerned, save the one who had the power to insure 
his nomination. He had to fight them through in the face 
of covert and confessed antipathy, and with means and ma- 
terials the insufficiency of which will be hardly credited now, 
though it is a matter of history. The whole staff of under- 
lings — guards, porters, ticket officers — had to be created for 
such service. There were difficulties and hindrances in the 
completion of the road such as had not occurred to many 
persons. As an instance, I may mention the fall of a tunnel 
at Preston Brook, more than twenty miles from Liverpool, 
which intercepted the communication betwixt Liverpool and 
Birmingham, making it necessary for the passengers to dis- 



y. R. CHORLE Y. 297 

mount, and pass on foot from the one to the other po'nt at 
which the railway again became feasible. I forget how enor- 
mous was the squadron of umbrellas provided to make the 
evil as small as possible in wet weather ; but I remember 
that my brother, harassed and hampered as he was in his 
office, went down to the scene of disaster, on a special engine, 
twice out and home every day, so that when the trains passed 
(there were then only two) some one should be at hand to 
answer inquiries and to overlook the exceptional service. 

" If he did not spare himself, he did not spare others. 
Feeling his own responsibility, he was rightly alive to that of 
the subordinate persons who had to work out the undertaking. 
He would take no excuse for any man's absence from duty. 
I believe that of the staff whom he had to organize and to 
control about a quarter was left at the end of the first three 
months. This may sound harsh, but it was right ; and that 
it won the esteem (I will say more, the affection) of those 
with whom, and above whom, he worked, there can be no 
doubt. The testimonies of appreciation and esteem, when 
he laid by his railway life, from all classes of persons with 
whom he had to do, were many, real, some of them affecting 
in their simplicity. I have been more than once claimed, 
very recently, in out of-the-way places, by total strangers, 
who had learned my name, and heard, perhaps, a family voice, 
and have offered to show me kindness and attention in mem- 
ory of him whose high honor and scrupulous sense of right 
and wrong had laid the key-stones of their fortunes. 

" In one respect I hold him to have been admirable as 
the servant of a company of capitalists. He would not use 
his knowledge and prescience to advance his own fortunes. 
I have heard him again and again say that his business was 
to keep his mind clear and ready for the duties of the hour, 
as undertaken by him. lie had besides the high feeling of a 
thorough gentleman, which prohibited his profiting by private 



298 



REMINISCENCES OF CHOREE Y. 



intelligence. This may have been, and was, overstrained in 
point of scruple ; but when the detestable and demoralizing 
alternative comes to be considered which has made such wild 
work in England, surely the young man who stood on the 
threshold of temptation, with every means to avail himself 
of its fruits, and who still refrained from so doing, was one 
of no common quality, conscience, or force in standing to his 
convictions. But it was so with him from first to last. 

" He was not met by liberal treatment on the part of those 
to whom he devoted himself. He was respected and trusted ; 
but he was not popular, partly from a certain reserve and 
haughtiness of manner, in which a consciousness of his su- 
periority to those who surrounded him expressed itself. It 
was too evident that he was doing faithful and indefatigable 
service against the grain. When, after some years, the ex- 
tent of his duties became too great for one person to manage, 
and he asked for assistance, no officer second in command 
was appointed, but a colleague totally inexperienced in every 
detail connected with the concern, and who was, from the 
first, as largely salaried as himself. In place, however, of 
showing any irritation at what amounted to an injustice, he 
applied himself zealously to give every possible weight and 
consequence to the gentleman placed beside him. The two 
became real friends. 

" At last, after years of strain and stress, which bore 
cruelly on the strength of one so sensitive — of hard, respon- 
sible work, only alternated with diligent, eager study — family 
circumstances underwent some change ; and, with those who 
were left to him, he removed to London. I had high hopes 
that the society which was open to him, with its intercourse 
and its influences, would melt and thaw that which had been 
made unyielding and ungenial in his manners, not his nature. 
But the change came too late. He was averse to society, 
save on the very peculiar and exclusive terms which suited 



J. R. CHORLE V. 299 

him. Though he could discourse on most topics, with a pre- 
cision of knowledge and, generally, a justice of view rarely 
surpassed or equalled — though he had a keen sense of wit 
and humor, and a rich store of anecdote and allusion to fall 
back on — his conversation wanted flow and lightness, and in 
truth was apt to be oppressive. I could name those now 
living, of great genius and learning, who have been as largely 
as he was little, conversant with intellectual society, in 
whom the same involution and ponderosity might be remarked. 
Their deep thoughts rise too rapidly, and jostle one another 
too closely, to allow their full weight and worth to be felt. 
Save when he was alone among his books, with one of the 
very few friends he made, he harangued rather than con- 
versed. 

"The pleasure he had in books and in the intimate 
knowledge of books, brought one reward — his power, sec- 
onded by his will, to sympathize with and assist the men of 
letters whom he respected. To such earnest men of letters 
as Professor Ticknor, of Boston, Don Pascual de Gayangos, 
of Spain, our great historian of the French Revolution and 
of the Life of Cromwell, his time, his heart, his labor were 
always open and to be disposed of at their service. So 
should it be and have been. 

" But well-a-day for the smaller fry of literature, unless, 
perchance, they belonged to Spain or to Germany ! Till 
within a very few years of his death, I was somewhat mis- 
judged by him, as one who had chosen my life for purposes 
of mere amusement. That my life- had been turned aside 
from its natural current — that whereas he should have been 
a great and ruling power in the world of letters, I might have 
become a fair musical composer (my ideas, for better for 
worse, having always first occurred to me in that form,) 
never, during a long portion of our two lives, seemed to 
occur to him. I never had word or sign from him to testify 






300 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORIEY. 



that anything I have published gave him pleasure. As time 
drew on, I think he came to see in my life that which is 
independent of accurate scholarship, or bright literary suc- 
cess, that to which every man who respects (as Milton says) 
' the best and honorablest things ' may aspire. We met 
rarely, but we met — under every conceivable disparity of 
culture and of social habits — with mutual respect. His was 
nobly shown to me • mine is humbly returned to him, by 
telling the whole truth, over the grave of a man hardly tried, 
misunderstood, and undervalued in his lifetime. 

" The peculiarities of his disposition might have been 
smoothed under a happier dispensation of circumstances. 
But his life was laid out to be a series of sacrifices, met by 
him with a sense of duty which was too severe, too unselfish. 
A more complete case of self-effacement has rarely come to 
my knowledge. He was compelled, by circumstances need- 
less to recount, by his own accuracy and justice as a man of 
business, to undertake the administration of family affairs, 
some of which were of no common perplexity. He watched 
over the declining health of my mother till the last ; and 
hardly had she departed, when it became evident that 
another charge of the kind, far more serious, was thrown on 
him — the ministry to a hopeless invalid, suffering and decay- 
ing more and more during many years ; one endowed with 
every gracious gift and capacity for enjoyment, who was 
doomed in the prime of life to expect and to endure the 
slow extinction of every hope that cheers, of every talent that 
alleviates acute and wearing bodily pain. The patience 
with which this grievous trial was braved is not to be exag- 
gerated ; but the inevitable result was to increase my bro- 
ther's seclusion among his own pursuits, and his disinclina- 
tion to .the freshening influences of outer life, which, be they 
ever so sparingly attainable, are not to be despised. Save 



MR. CARLYLE. 



301 



in long and solitary walks, early in the morning, for many 
years he rarely crossed the threshold ; haunted by an almost 
morbid fear of mischance which might happen in his absence. 
He bore up nobly till the long dreary story closed; but the 
spring of life was worn out, and nothing remained to him 
but the company of his books, in the silence of a solitary 
house, entered with so much hope and prospect of years of 
rest and enjoyment. 

" I cannot go further. What I have tried to do has been 
to trace a character, not to narrate a series of trials in 
detail. The end, when it came, was peaceful; full of faith, 
hope and humility. By the few who really knew my brother, 
he will not be forgotten ; but his is not a figure to be left 
out of a story which I am attempting to tell faithfully." 

The memorials that can be added to this nar- 
rative are few, but one of them is of no common 
interest. Mr. John Chorley was honored, during 
many years of his life, with the intimate friendship 
of Mr. Carlyle. No higher testimony to the intellec- 
tual and moral attractions of the deceased, by which 
that intimacy was cemented, can be given than in 
the words of the survivor. 

" I often urged him to write a book on Spanish litera- 
ture — some good book, worthy of himself and of his wide 
and exact knowledge, but he would never consent to try. 
He could have written like few men. on many subjects, but 
he had proudly pitched his ideal very high. I know no 
man in these flimsy days, nor shall ever again know one, so 
well read, so widely and accurately informed, and so com- 
pletely at home, not only in all fields of worthy literature 
and scholarship, but in matters practical, technical, naval, 
mechanical, etc., etc., as well." 



302 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

This estimate of the scholar is extracted from a 
letter addressed to Henry Chorley after his brother's 
death. How deep an affection Mr. Carlyle entertained 
for the man may be learned from another letter written 
in reply to one that announced his dangerous illness. 

" Chelsea, 19th June, 1867. 
" My dear Sir : — 

" Your note of yesterday is a most welcome favor 
to me ; a very great and almost sacred bit of charity and 
solace done me in the dark and sad element where you 
yourself are now living and waiting ! The last time I saw 
your dear brother — alas, 1 little thought it was the last I — 
I noticed no fatal symptom in him ; nothing but very great 
misery and disquiet, which I lightly supposed the summer 
weather, and a shift to the shore of the sea, which was 
always such a favorite with him, would clear away ; and I 
am never since free from an occasional doubt that I may 
have really pained him and done myself injustice by my 
light and hopeful way of treating all his misgivings and bad 
prognostics, which have proved so dismally true — alas, 
alas ! 

"From your brother William's letters to my brother John 
at Dumfries, I am kept in knowledge of the progress 
of things from day to day towards their inevitable goal ; 
and I thank Heaven along with you, that pain and irrita- 
tion are quite gone, and that sleep and quiet are now the 
attendants of that ardent soul to its final rest. Final 
and perfect, where all the weary do at length rest ! 

" If in any fit moment you could whisper to him, that I, 
who owe him so much, did always honor and esteem him as 
few others ; am touched to the heart with what is going on, 
know well what loss I am sustaining, and shall piously regret 
him all my remaining days, the fact will abundantly support 



PROFESSOR TICKNOR. 



303 



you ; and should the opportunity offer (not otherwise, I beg), 
it will be a drop of consolation to me. 

" May God be with him ! may God be with us all ! 
" Yours, with deep sympathy, 

" T. Carlyle." 

To the praise which Chorley has bestowed on his 
brother's poetry, and the reference made to his inter- 
course with an eminent American scholar, the late 
Professor Ticknor, the latter's own testimony may be 
added. The following letter from him acknowledged 
the receipt of John Chorley's book: — 

" Boston, United States, 
" 3d March, 1866. 

" Dear Chorley : — 

" Your kind letter came a month ago ; your little volume 
came last week. I was thankful for both, and especially 
thankful to hear from you and to have proof of your continued 
remembrance. The poems arrived just before a late dinner, 
but before I went to bed I had finished them, so attrac- 
tive were they. I like the drama and the madrigal best, 
though, very probably, better judges will decide otherwise 
in England. There, however, you have settled it long ago. 
But about one point there can be no doubt anywhere. The 
finish of the work and its pure true English are charming. 
By an accident, I read the poetry before I read the preface, 
and, in consequence of this, two things struck me, which 
otherwise would not have done so in the way they did. The 
first was, that the drama had a weird air about it, which 
was not explained, until I found that its earliest origin, and 
therefore its ground-colors, so to speak, were to be sought 
in a wild vivid dream. The other was a certain indistinct 



304 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

resemblance of your versification in the drama to the Span- 
ish, which I naturally attributed altogether to your loving 
familiarity with that delightful mass of popular and poeti- 
cal extravagances in the ' Comedias Famosas,' but which it 
seems had so little of such origin, that I must attribute it to 
your instincts rather than to the studies which have done so 
much for your later life. But, however this may be, the 
drama itself is most agreeable, refreshing, and original. 
Since I wrote the last sentence, I have read nearly the whole 
of it over again. The effect is still the same. I do not well 
see how you have brought it all to pass. 

" I am much troubled to hear that you have been unwell, 
and that, although the sciatica has given way, you are still not 
as fresh and strong as I would have you. My own record is 
not better, with a good many more years than yours on it, and 
all their infirmities. 1 was ill all through December with 
troubles in the liver, and though I am well enough now for a 
man between seventy-four and seventy-five, I have been 
obliged to let my correspondence languish a good deal for 
two or three years back. Except for this, you would -certainly 
have heard from me. I have long had your name at the head 
of a list that I have kept, like my sins, constantly before me, 
for my warning and rebuke, that so many of my friends have 
claims upon me which I have not acknowledged. In this I 
know that I have neglected my own interests. For a year, 
I have wanted to ask you two questions, and if I ask them 
now, I feel that I must rely on your good nature for answers. 
I will, however, venture : ist. Can you send me a copy, to 
be made at my expense, from the preface to Lope's ' Arcadia,' 
which is the thirteenth of your ' Comedias,' Barcelona, 1620, 
or that in the British Museum, same year, Madrid ? If you 
will take the trouble to turn to Casiano Pellicer, ' Origen y 
Progresos de la Comedia,' 1804, tomo i. p. 171, you will see 



PROFESSOR TICKNOR. 



305 



in part why I want it.* The play itself I do not need. 2d. 
Can you tell me, in general terms, how much Cancer, in his 
'Mejor Representante ' (' Comedias Escogidas,' tomo xxix. 
1668), is indebted to Lope's ' Fingido Verdadero ' ('Come- 
dias,' tomo xvi. 162 1 and 1622) ? I do not care for details, 
and not even an answer to the question whether Cancer took 
much or little, if it is likely to give you trouble. Thank you 
for your congratulations on the end of our civil war, which, 
God be praised ! is over. I never doubted that we should 
prevail. I did what I could to secure our success ; but I 
always felt that great troubles would follow the most assured 
victories. Since the days of the Moors and Christians, there 
have been no such hatreds as now prevail between the North- 
ern and Southern States of this Union. How they are to be 
appeased I do not know, and certainly shall not live to see ; 
but that there will be no more fighting in my time, I trust 
and believe. The South is thoroughly beaten, and slavery 
is really abolished. Whether the blacks will perish from 
among us, as the aborigines have (by our fault in a great 
measure), remains in the uncertain future ; but I think they 
can never again become bondsmen. 

" Yours faithfully, 

"Geo. Ticknor." 

Professor Ticknor's preface to his " History of Span- 
ish Literature " acknowledges his indebtedness to the 
extensive library collected by John Chorley, and now 
deposited in the British Museum. We have only to 
add, that between 1846 and 1854, John Chorley was 
the principal reviewer of German, Italian, and Spanish 
publications for the "Athenaeum." He died June 29th, 
1867, of atrophy. 

* [Note by John Chorley.] " Gran memoria." 



306 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

Under his brother's will Chorley received an access 
of fortune* which left him for the remainder of life in 
comparative affluence ; but the loss he had sustained 
was not thus to be compensated. To the shock of 
this event, culminating a series of bereavements, and 
succeeding a long term of failing health, must be attrib- 
uted the lapse into the fatal habit to which allusion has 
already been made. The 'depressing effect of habitual 
solitude upon his spirits has been repeatedly noticed. 
Affectionate as his friendships were, they could not 
atone to him for the loss of wife and child. No one 
who has not read his journals can estimate how per- 
sistently this was felt. Such an entry as the following 
is but one of a score of similar purport : — 

"La Cava, Wednesday, Oct. 6th, 1858. — Here again I 
was glad to get alone, moved to tears, and full of those hope- 
less yearnings for rest, for affection, for something to lean 
on, on earth, which I am now sure is not my appointment. 
As God wills ! " 

Even more pathetic, however, than any complaint 
is the evidence of his constant effort to escape from 
this sense of isolation by adding to the toils of an 
already laborious life. A letter to Sir Wentworth 
Dilke, in 1859, illustrates this in a striking manner: — 

" 13, Eaton Place West, 
" Wednesday, Feb. 2, 1859. 
" Dear Wentworth, 

" I called on you the other day to trouble you about a 

* The bulk of John Chorley's property was inherited, directly or 
indirectly, from his uncle, Dr. Rutter. 



LETTER TO SIR W. DILA'E. 



307 



very dull subject, ray own affairs. A few words on paper 
will perhaps best explain my meaning. I have been feeling, 
for the last few years, that things are not quite as they should 
be with me. I do not mean as to worldly circumstances, 
since, so long as I can work as now, I can live quite as well 
as a man need do in my situation ; and though I have had 
a rather unusual share of ill-luck, I have no pinch for the 
present, no fear for the future. But I am living too much 
alone. Such family intercourse as I have is entirely confined 
to my poor sister, and that is neither supporting nor cheer- 
ing ; and I find my life beginning to weigh so heavily on my 
nerves and spirits, that I cannot go much further without 
some attempt to right myself. What I should like would be 
to find some little occupation which brought me more into 
contact with companionable and intelligent people. My 
intercourse with the musicians does not fill this want, since 
in that I give much, and receive only in return as much as 
suffices for the necessities of my position before the public. 
Thus it has occurred to me to ask you whether, in some of 
all these ramifying art-designs, schools, museums, etc., etc., 
I could not be made of use ; since I do not think that my 
knowledge (especially on all lower matters connected with 
decoration, etc., etc.,) or my experiences of what exists here 
and. abroad, are less than those of many who appear to suc- 
ceed and to give satisfaction ; and I fancy that I might be 
able to turn them to account, without losing my hold on my 
own peculiar public, which I think I may say, without vanity, 
is now very strong, though neither gainful nor refreshing. I 
think I need not say to you that I would undertake nothing 
that I could not accomplish ; still less, that I am not afraid 
of work ; but I feel the necessity of a relief from a state of 
things brought about by a singular number of deaths, changes, 
want of ability on my own part to push myself forward, and my 
painfully solitary position as the last of a family, with no 



308 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

living younger relative to look to, and no creature within 
reach to whom I can speak of what passes in my mind. You 
will see that this letter is one requiring no answer (I feel 
secure of your good-will) ; but if occasion should serve, do 
not forget its contents. Let me again repeat that it is no 
money-pressure that makes me trouble you. When I cease 
to be a journalist I can make up ^"400 a year, on which I 
can dream out my old days abroad ; and should I survive 
others of my family, that income must be increased. Thus 
I cannot, I trust, be misunderstood, while I must also beg 
you to excuse my prosiness, in explanation of a tale and a 
situation other than cheerful, or perhaps much longer tenable 
by 

"Yours ever faithfully, 

" Henry F. Chorley." 

Long after his need to work for livelihood had 
ceased, as this letter testifies, he continued to work 
for self-forgetfulness, his regular avocation as a critic 
not being surrendered until his sixtieth year, and his 
mind occupying itself with new literary schemes to 
the last. The stress of this incessant exertion aggra- 
vated the chronic disease under which he suffered, and 
entailed a fresh access of depression. To enable him 
to exact a full quantum of work out of his exhausted 
frame, he had resort to the strongest tonics. Writing 
to Liverpool before his sister's death in 1863, he says : 

' " My poor invalid suffers much, and I myself have come 
to the point of almost living without sleep and living upon 
quinine, with many weeks to get through before I can right 

myself." 



TRA VEL. 



309 



It was when the effect of this medicine had failed, 
and under the weight of an affliction which tempora- 
rily incapacitated him from his wonted distraction in 
work, that he adopted the disastrous measure of 
recruiting his strength by stimulants. The advice of 
friends and his own conviction of the mistake he was 
making, happily prevailed to bring this habit under 
control, though it was never entirely shaken off. It 
had no power over him when on a visit to friends, or 
when seeking recreation in travel ; a consideration 
that emphasises the distinction to be drawn between 
such a habit acquired in despair of other remedial aids, 
and one engendered by luxurious self-indulgence. 
That the consequences were not less calamitous must 
be frankly and sorrowfully admitted. Shattered 
health and weakened memory, a temper made more 
irritable and self-assertion more prominent, and, as 
the natural result of such infirmities, an amount of 
dissension and estrangement that embittered his 
declining years ; these were of themselves a sufficient 
punishment. But as compared with other manifesta- 
tions of its kind, his error was assuredly venial, and 
entitled him to the forbearance of his fellows. 

The holiday tours so often mentioned as seasons 
of restoration offer a more cheerful subject. Until the 
last year or two of his life these were spent on the 
Continent. The diaries kept of them, which extend 
up to 1 86 1, are for the most part brief, and contain few 
passages that admit of extract ; but they show no 
abatement of his interest in mental culture or the pro- 
gress of contemporary art. Their notes of picturesque 



3io 



REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 



scenery, and sketches of architectural novelties attest, 
as of yore, his close and loving observation. One 
diary chronicles his extreme delight at meeting in 
Leipsic with an American gentleman, Mr. Perkins, 
' young, handsome, and rich, who has come out from 
home resolutely to work out a career in art, with the 
hope of doing good to his country by its agency when 
he goes back.' With this gentleman, who devoted 
himself to the study of music, ' with very many 
requisites for the task,' Chorley subsequently became 
intimate, and, I believe, supplied the words for a can- 
tata composed by him. 

The most interesting of these later tours was made 
in. Spain during the autumn of 1861, in company 
with Mr.Frederick Lehmann. Some extracts from a 
letter thence, addressed to Mrs. R. Rathbone, give 
an outline of the principal impressions it produced : 

" Granada, Sept. 18th, 1861. 

" My dear Friend : — 

" I have thought of you often since I have written to 
you. I don't think there was a day when you were abroad 
that I did not pass some part of it with you. Now you 
have some leisure ; are settled (I take it) in your new 
house ; and the one number of the ' Times ' I have seen since 
I was out told me of Emily's marriage : so I have said to 
myself, 'I will write.' You know what I would say, and 
must feel, about any event that takes place which ever so 
remotely touches you, since time and trial have done any- 
thing rather than cast me loose of old gratitudes and affec- 
tions. Credit me, pray then, for having said it on this occa- 
sion, and for having felt it. It was rather a desperate expe- 
dient in me to come to Spain, so shattered was I by ten 



LETTER FROM SPAIN. 



311 



months of incessant work in London. Without some com- 
plete change, I could not have held out much longer, and 
this (by a mere chance thought of F. Lehmann's) seemed 
to offer itself. So far as restoring nervous and physical 
power, it has answered completely. I have rarely felt bet- 
ter ; but the fatigue has been tremendous in places. We 
are here a month too soon ; in a year of drought — a new 
experience to me, and which can only be shown to its full 
character on a southern landscape, and that as bare a one 
as the staple landscapes of Spain. The heat and parch 
give it a kind of savagery which is characteristic ; but the 
dust — which electroplates vine, and fig, and aloe, and seems 
to creep into one's very thoughts, too ! Strange to say, 
heat and dust have braced me ■ but my brains have gone to 
sleep. I feel the utmost difficulty in writing up my journal, 
and in talking more than about four hours in the four-and- 
twenty. I hope, however, to retain my impressions of this 
very peculiar country, which has many rich things sown 
far apart. 

" We had a glorious week among the pictures in the 
Madrid gallery, which I suppose is now the finest collection 
in Europe. I studied the Spaniards very hard, because 
here they are at home, and had extraordinary enjoyment in 
Velasquez, who was in some sort a revelation to me. The 
Raphaels hardly seemed to me up to their reputation (but 
if I dared say so, I should say that was no new experience) ; 
the Titians, Tintorettos, and specimens by Paul Veronese 
admirable. Eight long visits were too few. I would endure 
the fag over again of the journey from London for a second 
trial. Toledo pleased us mightily — my first real acquaintance 
with Moorish architecture and decoration. The town is a very 
quaint one, and stands nobly. T think the Escurial has been 
over-praised, though the mausoleum of the kings of Spain 
is truly a pompous sleeping-place for the common clay of 



312 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

which even Spanish kings are made. Then, in their way, 
the Cathedral of Cordova (whilom a mosque — a labyrinth 
of pillars and interlaced arches) and that of Seville, too, 
could be hardly exceeded. In a building like the latter — so 
gorgeous, so august — open all day, and where every hour 
brings out a new light, or shuts up some known object in a 
strange mystery of form — I can quite understand how those 
whose spirits and purposes are ruled by impression, must 
be Roman Catholics — why there is small chance of that 
great wicked delusion ever wearing out of the world. We 
liked the curiosities of Seville much • but the people 
seemed too languid and borne down by the heat to rally to 
such alacrity as makes a strange place welcome. Cadiz 
gave us sea-breezes, so did Malaga (and big muscatel 
grapes, the only ripe fruit I have seen in Spain), and now 
we are here for a week. I shall begin on the Alhambra to- 
morrow ; to-night (after a sixteen-hours' rough journey) I 
have given up to aimless roaming, by such a moonlight ! It is 
a thing to remember. Howl wish I could cut you out my 
window, and the view it commands, and the light, and send 
them home ! There is no exaggerating this side of southern 
beauty, and Granada lends itself to it very lovingly. It is 
odd how bodily exhaustion seems utterly to vanish and 
retire when the spell is so strong. 

" Sept. igt/i. — I feel powerless to describe the Alhambra ; 
all that can be told is told by views and photographs, and one 
knew every bit by heart ere one saw it ; and yet how much 
more is there to see! — and this totally apart from historic 
associations. When I have been once or twice, I shall be 
able, perhaps, to record for myself some of the memorable 
points which no photograph can give. These remains, like 
the old Roman and the Gothic antiquities (and, of course, 
the Egyptian ruins), strike one with a sense of childishness? 
when one is tempted to connect modern times with anything 



SCARBOROUGH. 



313 



like artistic achievement. When the Alhambra was in its 
glory, there must have been acres of the finest lace-hangings 
in plaster (much of it open-work) hung on the walls. As for 
its towers and ramparts, they were beyond number. I am 
no wailer after the old times, but to see such proof of their 
pride and glory (in our world, wherein many interests are 
embarked still in cockleshell boats, by comparison,) is very 
subduing. When one thinks of ^"10,000 paid for a vulgar 
English picture now-a-days, and sees these wondrous relics of 
a people — now under the world's feet — the comparison be- 
comes very painful because very humiliating, but very instruc- 
tive 

" Very affectionately and gratefully yours, 

" Henry F. Chorley." 

Of later years, his favorite place of sojourn in Eng- 
land was Scarborough, where the humors of its mixed 
society were a source of unfailing enjoyment to him. 
At the Grand Hotel his was a familiar figure, and with 
the facility which he always retained of making pleas- 
ant acquaintance, he seldom passed a season there 
without enlarging the number. Next to Gad's Hill, 
among his friends' houses, Lady Downshires', Wake- 
hurst Place, was the one at which he felt most thor- 
oughly at home. At both, to judge from his letters, 
he underwent a genuine renewal of youth, and the 
mental and bodily infirmities which beset him in Lon- 
don seemed for a time forgotten. 

" Towards the close of Chorley's life," says Mr. 
Hewlett, his biographer, " we were in frequent converse, 
both personally and by letter. Few men were more 
companionable when tete d tete, his fertile fancy, reten- 
tive memory, and large experience supplying ample 

T4 



314 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLEY. 

illustrations of any theme that arose for discussion. At 
the parties which he was in the habit of assembling of 
his principal friends, it was always a treat to be present. 
The guests were often curiously assorted — zgrande dame 
sitting beside a popular comedian, or a grave student 
by a brilliant artiste ; but, as the event usually proved, 
not inharmoniously blended. One was tolerably sure 
to meet some person of distinction ; and in such com- 
pany as that of Dickens, Sir Arthur Helps, Sir John 
Coleridge, Madame Viardot, Sir Michael Costa, Mr. 
Sullivan, Mr. Reeve, Mr. Eastwick, or Mrs. Procter, a 
visitor must have been hard to please who did not find 
his evening agreeable. The dinners, of their kind, were 
unique, at once informal and recherches, with certain 
dishes seldom to be with elsewhere, to one or other of 
which the carte generally called attention in a naive 
marginal note, such as ' Try this ; H. F. C — all, how- 
ever elaborate, being made at home, and mythically 
ascribed to receipts from a wonderful cookery-book, 
of which the world was one day promised a glimpse. 
If there was music afterwards, it was always of the 
best, whether the performers were professional or ama- 
teur. The presence of the host, with his genial, old- 
fashioned courtesy, quaint manner, and humorous per- 
siflage, lent a peculiar flavor of character to the whole 
entertainment. Altogether, these gatherings belonged 
to a type not easily to be matched in the circles of 
London society." 

The sudden death of Dickens was felt by no one, 
out of his own family, as a more painful shock than 
by Chorley. The friends had been in correspondence 
during the previous week ; the last note or two from 



OBITUAR Y OF DICKENS. 



315 



Dickens having reference to an old picture of Rane- 
lagh Gardens, which Chorley had just purchased after 
some preliminary negotiation, and was about to for- 
ward to Gad's Hill as a present. These notes, of which 
the following is a sample, assuredly told of nothing so 
little as decay in the health or spirits of the writer. 

" Gad's Hill Place, 
" Higham by Rochester, Kent. 
" Sunday, 5th June, 1870. 

" My dear Chorley : — 

" Believe me, I shall be charmed to have the picture, if 
you succeed in your negotiation for it. Apart from its own 
interest (and you know beforehand how the subject attracts 
me), it will be priceless to me as a token of your regard. I 
will find a place for it somehow and somewhere, and am 
already pervading the house with a two-foot rule, measur- 
ing in all directions. The improvements solicit inspection. 
Among them a toy-stable, which has the air of being made 
for horses on wheels, with fur manes and tails. Bring a rock- 
ing-horse with you, and it shall have the best stall of state. 
" Ever faithfully and affectionately, 

"C. D." 

The last note, making arrangements for the dis- 
patch of the picture, was dated Tuesday, 7th June. 
On the Thursday, one from Miss Dickens announced 
her father's seizure on the previous day, and the next 
brought news of his death. Chorley's mental prostra- 
tion, when I called upon him shortly afterwards, was 
painful to witness, affording as it did a measure of the 
extent to which his friendship had supported him. At 
the suggestion of Sir C. W. Dilke, he wrote the obi- 
tuary notice of Dickens in the " Athenaeum " of the 



3 1 6 REMINISCENCES OF CHORLE Y. 

following week, unwilling that it should be entrusted 
to any less reverent hand. The performance redoubled 
his distress, and bore evidence of the effort it had cost, 
without satisfying his intention of doing justice to the 
subject. 

How bitterly the loss was felt all his letters told. 
Acknowledging a message from Mr. Benson Rathbone 
just afterwards, he wrote : — 

" God bless you for your kindness. For the hour I am 
best alone. ... I have a letter from poor Mary. If uni- 
versal sympathy of the warmest kind in every form could 
soften the agony of such a trial, they will have it in over- 
flowing measure ; but it will not give back one of the noblest 
and most gifted men I have ever known, whose regard for 
me was one of those honors which make amends for much 
failure and disappointment. I cannot express to any human 
being the void this will make for me to my dying day." 

Though he did not survive his friend long enough 
to lose the sense of bereavement, and the painful accel- 
eration of organic disease, from which he thenceforth 
suffered, may have been consequent upon the shock, 
he rallied from it sooner than might have been 
expected. In physical weakness, he was, no doubt, 
during the last two or three years of his life, a prema- 
turely old man ; but the signs of mental decay, which 
some of his acquaintance observed in him, were illusory. 
No such traces, at all events, are to be found in his last 
literary product, the biographical sketch of Miss Mit- 
ford, which he wrote at this time. 

During the winter of 1871, Chorley's health became 



DEATH. 2,17 

decidedly worse, and compelled him to abandon a visit 
which he had planned to Liverpool. A partial recovery 
of strength ensued, but the occupation of his mind 
with the thought that it would prove transient showed 
itself in his frequent references to a future life when 
conversing with his confidential servant. The expecta- 
tion of sudden death, however, had become so habit- 
ual to him, that he practically disregarded it. He 
had planned a dinner-party for Friday, the 16th Feb- 
ruary (1872), the day on which he died, when Sir 
Michael Costa, Lady Downshire, and other friends 
were to have been among the guests. On the 
Wednesday preceding, he was present at a theatrical 
ball given by Mrs. Bancroft, and on the Thursday, 
when Mr. Francis, the publisher of the " Athenaeum," 
called upon him, he spoke with cheerfulness of his 
future plans. Early on the following morning he was 
seized with sudden syncope, and, after lying a few hours 
unconscious, expired without apparent suffering. 

He was buried, by his own desire, beside his bro- 
ther John, in Brompton Cemetery, a large number of 
his associates, including many representatives of letters 
and art, following his remains to the grave. 



THE END. 



INDEX OE NAMES 



MENTIONED THROUGHOUT THE WORK. 



A LEXIS, 269. 
-"- Ancelot, Madame, 131. 
Atherstone, 46. 
Austin, Mr. and Mrs., 137. 
Ayton, Fanny, 39. 

T> ANCROFT, Mr. and Mrs., 2? 
•*-* Bayly, Haynes, 143. 
Beattie, Dr., 212. 
Belgiojoso, Prince, 131. 
Bendemann, Professor, 199. 
Berlioz, Hector, 219, 220. 
Berry, Misses, 141. 
Blessington, Lady, 85. 
Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, 13S 
Bosco, 268. 
Bradshaw, Mrs., 16. 
Browning, Robert, 183, 243. 
Browning, Mrs., 186. 
Bulwer, Edward Lytton, 96. 
Bulwer, Sir Henry, 87. 
Byron, Lord, 92. 

/ \ \ MPBELL, Thomas, 27, 210. 
^ Carlyle, Thomas, 301, 302. 
Caston, Chevalier de, 269. 
Cathcart, 54. 
Chopin, 155, 218. 
Chorley, Jane, 1, 6, 11. 
Chorley, John, 1. 
Chorley, John Rutter, 2S6. 



Chorley, Rebecca, 3. 
Coleridge, Sir John Duke, 264. 
Collins, Wilkie, 230. 
Combe, Dr. Andrew, 25. 
Cornwall, Barry, 77, 226, 275. 
Costa, Sir Michael, 153. 
Cranach, Lucas, 197. 
Cushman, Charlotte, 236. 
Cuvier, Madame, 131. 

IVABRANTES, Duchess, 131. 

Darley, George, 53, 103. 
David, 166. 

Dickens, Charles, 238, 272, 315. 
Dickens, Miss, 277. 
Dilke, Charles Wentworth, 40, 50. 
Dilke, Sir Wentworth, 306. 
Disraeli, Isaac, 94. 
Donizetti, 40, 260. 
D'Orsay, Count, 87, 98. 
Dorus-Gras, 155. 
Downshire, Lady, 284. 
Duprez, 155. 



J7ASTWICK, 284. 
Ernst, 220. 



PECHTER, Charles, 285. 
L Fonblanque, Albany, 92, 94. 
Forrest, Edwin, 68. 
Francis, John, 317. 



320 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



n ARCIA, Madame,- 155. 
^ " George Sand," 132. 
Gibson, Milner, 284. 
Glehn, Mrs. Von, 284. 
Gluck, 254. 
Goethe, 164. 
Gounod, 139. 
Gramont, Due de, 130. 
Grisi, Madame, 151. 
Grote, George, 106. 
Guiccioli, Countess, 93. 
Guizot, i3q 

TTARNESS, William, 102. 

-*--*- Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 226, 241 

Hawthorne, Mrs., 227, 241. 

Heathcote, Rev. Mr., 28. 

Helps, Sir Arthur, 284. 

Hemans, Mrs., 37, 62. 

Holland, Lady, 88, 98. 

Hood, Thomas, 46, 52, 142. 

Hook, Theodore, 91. 

Houdin, Robert, 268. 

Houghton, Lord, 137. 

Howitt, William and Mary, 10S. 

TAMES, G. P. R., 58. 
^ Jameson, Mrs., 137. 
Jerdan, William, 41. 
Jerrold, Douglas, 179. 
Jewsbury, Miss, 40. 

TTAtTLBACH, 200. 
-*-*- Kean, Charles, 2S4. 
Kemble, Charles, 102. 
FCenyon, George, 189. 
Kock, Paul de, 131. 

T ANDON, Miss, 51, 126. 

■^ Landor, Walter Savage, 93, 95. 

Langtree, 308. 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 68. 

Lehmann, Frederick, 310. 

Leightbn, Frederick, 284. 

Leslie, Henry, 350. 

Lind, Jenny, 215, 221. 

Liszt, 1S6. 

Loudon, Mrs., 179. 



Lyndhurst, Lord, 131. 
Lytton, Lord, 96. 

MACREADY, 68, 96. 

-L'-*- Mario, 155. 

Mars, Mile., 136. 

Martineau, Miss, 208. 

Maule, George 13., 195. 

Mendelssohn, Felix, 156, 164, 169, 175, 

205, 206. 
Meyerbeer, 216. 

Mitford, Mary Russell, 100, 184. 
Molesworth, Sir William, 191. 
Montagu, Mr. and Mrs. Basil, 77. 
Montalembert, Count, 137. 
Morgan, Lady, 115. 
Morgan, Sir Charles, 118. 
Moscheles, Ignatz, 78, 79, 164. 
Moskowa, Prince de, 131. 

IV 1 " AU, i SS . 

11 Neukomm, Chevalier, 80. 

Nourrit, 155. 







WEN, Robert, 25. 
Ossuna, Duke of, 107. 



DAGANINI, 42. 
- 1 - Pasta, Madame, 39, 261. 
Patmore, Coventry, 230. 
Paton, Miss, 53. 
Persiani, 155. 
Persigny, Count, 138. 
Porter, Jane, 120. 

Procter, B. W. (" Barry Cornwall "), 77, 
226, 279. 

DACHEL, 135, 261. 

-" Rathbone, Benson, 36, 74. 

Rathbone, Hannah Mary, 23. 

Reeve, Henry, 136. 

Reeves, Sims, 267. 

Reynolds, John Hamilton, 53. 

Rio, 95. 

Ristori, Madame, 285. 

Rogers, Samuel, no. 

Roscoe, Henry, 78. 

Roscoe, William, 25. 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



321 



Rothwell, 85. 
Rutter, John, 7, 30. 

OARTORIS, Mrs., 113. 
^ Schumann, 167. 
Sedgwick, Miss, 143, 144. 
Seeman, 284. 
Smith, Sydney, 97. 
Smith, James, 142. 
Somerville, Mrs., 129. 
Sotheru, 285. 
Southey, Robert, 142. 
Stephens, Miss, 53. 
Strauss, Johann, 239. 
14* 



Sullivan. Arthur, 314. 
Sumner, Charles, SS. 

'PAGLIONI, 120. 

-*■ Talfourd, Justice, 55, 105. 

Thackeray, W. M., 59. 

Thai berg, 220. 

Ticknor, George, 303. 

T7TARDOT, Madame, 21S, 261. 
' Vigny, Alfred de, 134. 

WESTMACOTT, 114. 
Vviiiis, Nathaniel P., 83. 
Wilson, Mrs. Cornwell Baron, 120. 
Wiseman, Cardinal, 122. 



